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HISTORY  PRIMERS,  edited  by 

J.  R.  Green, 


FRANCE. 


fl^fetorg  prtmerg.         Edited  by  ].  R.  Green. 


HISTORY 

OF 

FRANCE. 


BY 


CHARLOTTE  M.  YONGE. 


NEW  YORK: 
D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 

I,  3,  AND  5  BOND  STREET. 
1889. 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

THE  EARLIER  KINGS  OF  FRANCE  I 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE  HUNDRED  YEARS'  WAR  25 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  BURGUNDY   .  43 

CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  ITALIAN  WARS  52 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE  WARS  OF  RELIGION  63 

CHAPTER  VI. 

POWER  OF  THE  CROWN  81 

CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  REVOLUTION  I02 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

FRANCE  SINCE  THE  REVOLUTION  II6 


MAP  OF  FRANCE, 


MAP  OF  FRANCE 


Showing  the  Depariments^ 


FRANCE. 


CHAPTER  1. 

THE  EARLIER  KINGS  OF  FRANCE. 

I.  France. — The  country  we  now  know  as  France 
is  the  tract  of  land  shut  in  by  the  British  Channel,  the 
Bay  of  Biscay,  the  Pyrenees,  the  Mediterranean,  and 
the  Alps.  But  this  country  only  gained  the  name  of 
France  by  degrees.  In  the  earliest  days  of  which  we 
have  any  account,  it  was  peopled  by  the  Celts,  and  it 
was  known  to  the  Romans  as  part  of  a  larger  country 
which  bore  the  name  of  Gaul.  After  all  of  it,  save  the 
north-western  moorlands,  or  what  we  now  call  Brittany, 
had  been  conquered  and  settled  by  the  Romans,  it 
was  overrun  by  tribes  of  the  great  Teutonic  race,  the 
same  family  to  which  Englishmen  belong.  Of  these 
tribes,  the  Goths  settled  in  the  provinces  to  the  south  ; 
the  Burgundians,  in  the  east,  around  the  Jura ;  while 


2 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


the  Franks,  coming  over  the  rivers  m  its  unprotected 
north-eastern  corner,  and  making  themselves  masters 
of  a  far  wider  territory,  broke  up  into  two  kingdoms — - 
that  of  the  Eastern  Franks  m  what  is  now  Germany, 
and  that  of  the  AVestern  Franks  reaching  from  the 
Rhine  to  the  Atlantic.    These  Franks  subdued  all  the 
other  Teutonic  conquerors  of  Gaul,  while  they  adopted 
the  religion,  the  language,  and  some  of  the  civilization 
of  the  Romanized  Gauls  who  became  their  subjects. 
Under  the  second  Frankish  dynasty,  the  Empire  was 
renewed  in  the  West,  where  it  had  been  for  a  time 
put  an  end  to  by  these  Teutonic  invasions,  and  the 
then  Frankish  king,  Charles  the  Great,  took  his  place 
as  Emperor  at  its  head.    But  in  the  time  of  his  grand- 
sons the  various  kingdoms  and  nations  of  which  the 
Empire  was  composed,  fell  apart  again  under  different 
descendants  of  his.    One  of  these,  Charles  the  Bald^ 
w^as  made  King  of  the  Western  Franks  in  what  was 
termed  the  Neustrian,  or  "not  eastern,"  kingdom, 
from  which  the  present  France  has  sprung.  This 
kingdom  in  name  covered  all  the  country  west  of  the 
Upper  Meuse,  but  practically  the  Neustrian  king  had 
little  power  south  of  the  Loire ;  and  the  Celts  of 
Brittany  were  never  included  in  it. 

2.  The  House  of  Paris. — The  great  danger 
which  this  Neustrian  kingdom  had  to  meet  came 
from  the  Northmen,  or  as  they  were  called  in  Eng- 


I.] 


THE  HOUSE  OF  PARIS, 


3 


land  the  Danes.  These  ravaged  in  Neustria  as  they 
ravaged  in  England ;  and  a  large  part  of  the  northern 
coast,  including  the  mouth  of  the  Seine,  was  given  by 
Charles  the  Bald  to  Rolf  or  Rollo,  one  of  their 
leaders,  whose  land  became  known  as  the  Northman's 
land,  or  Normandy.  What  most  checked  the  ravages 
of  these  pirates  was  the  resistance  of  Paris,  a  town 
which  commanded  the  road  along  the  river  Seine  ; 
and  it  was  in  defending  the  city  of  Paris  from  the 
Northmen  that  a  warrior  named  Robert  the  Strong 
gained  the  trust  and  affection  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
Neustrian  kingdom.  He  and  his  family  became 
Counts  (/.^.,  judges  and  protectors)  of  Paris,  and 
Dukes  (or  leaders)  of  the  Franks.  Three  generations 
of  them  were  really  great  men — Robert  the  Strong, 
Odo,  and  Hugh  the  White;  and  when  the  descendants 
of  Charles  the  Great  had  died  out,  a  Duke  of  the 
Franks,  Hugh  Capet ^  was  in  987  crowned  King  of  the 
Franks.  All  the  after  kings  of  France  down  to  Louis 
Philippe  were  descendants  of  Hugh  Capet.  By  this 
change,  however,  he  gained  little  in  real  power ;  for, 
though  he  claimed  to  rule  over  the  whole  country  of 
the  Neustrian  Franks,  his  authority  was  little  heeded, 
save  in  the  domain  which  he  had  possessed  as  Count 
of  Paris,  including  the  cities  of  Paris,  Orleans,  Amiens, 
and  Rheims  (the  coronation  place).  He  was  guar- 
dian, too,  of  the  great  Abbeys  of  St.  Denys  and  St. 

Martin  of  Tours.    The  Duke  of  Normandy  and  the 
11* 


4 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


Count  of  Anjou  to  the  west,  the  Count  of  Flanders  to 
the  north,  the  Count  of  Champagne  to  the  east,  and 
the  Duke  of  Aquitaine  to  the  south,  paid  him  homage, 
but  were  the  only  actual  rulers  in  their  own  domains. 

3.  The  Kingdom  of  Hugh  Capet— The  lan- 
guage of  Hugh's  kingdom  was  clipped  Latin ;  the  pea- 
santry and  townsmen  were  mostly  Gaulish;  the  nobles 
were  almost  entirely  Frank.  There  was  an  under- 
standing that  the  king  could  only  act  by  their  con- 
sent, and  must  be  chosen  by  them;  but  matters  went 
more  by  old  custom  and  the  right  of  the  strongest 
than  by  any  law.  A  Salic  law,  so  called  from  the  place 
whence  the  Franks  had  come,  was  supposed  to  exist ; 
but  this  had  never  been  used  by  their  subjects,  whose 
law  remained  that  of  the  old  Roman  Empire.  Both  of 
these  systems  of  law,  however,  fell  into  disuse,  and  were 
replaced  by  rude  bodies  of  ^^customs,"  which  gradually 
grew  up.  The  habits  of  the  time  were  exceedingly  rude 
and  ferocious.  The  Franks  had  been  the  fiercest  and 
most  untamable  of  all  the  Teutonic  nations,  and  only 
submitted  themselves  to  the  influence  of  Christianity 
and  civilization  from  the  respect  which  the  Roman 
Empire  inspired.  Charles  the  Great  had  tried  to 
bring  in  Roman  cultivation,  but  we  find  him  reproach- 
ing the  young  Franks  in  his  schools  with  letting  them- 
selves be  surpassed  by  the  Gauls,  whom  they  despised  ; 
and  in  the  disorders  that  followed  his  death,  barbarism 


I.]  THE  KINGDOM  OF  HUGH  CAPET. 


increased  again.  The  convents  alone  kept  up  any 
remnants  of  culture ;  but  as  the  fury  of  the  Northmen 
was  chiefly  directed  to  them,  numbers  had  been  de- 
stroyed, and  there  was  more  ignorance  and  wretched- 
ness than  at  any  other  time.  In  the  duchy  of 
Aquitaine,  much  more  of  the  old  Roman  civilization 
survived,  both  among  the  cities  and  the  nobility ;  and 
the  Normans,  newly  settled  in  the  north,  had  brought 
with  them  the  vigour  of  their  race.  They  had  taken 
up  such  dead  or  dying  culture  as  they  found  in  France, 
and  were  carrying  it  further,  so  as  in  some  degree  to 
awaken  their  neighbours.  Kings  and  their  great 
vassals  could  generally  read  and  write,  and  understand 
the  Latin  in  which  all  records  were  made,  but  few 
except  the  clergy  studied  at  all.  There  were  schools 
in  convents,  and  already  at  Paris  a  university  was 
growing  up  for  the  study  of  theology,  grammar,  law, 
philosophy,  and  music,  the  sciences  which  were  held 
to  form  a  course  of  education.  The  doctors  of  these 
sciences  lectured ;  the  scholars  of  low  degree  lived, 
begged,  and  struggled  as  best  they  could  ;  and  gentle- 
men were  lodged  with  clergy,  who  served  as  a  sort  of 
private  tutors. 

4.  Earlier  Kings  of  the  House  of  Paris. — 

Neither  Hugh  nor  the  next  three  kings  {Robert^  99^- 

1031;  ZT^/^/j,  1 031-1060;  Philips  1060-1 108)  were 

able  men,  and  they  were  almost  helpless  among  the 
2 


6 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


fierce  nobles  of  their  own  domain,  and  the  great  counts 
and  dukes  around  them.  Castles  were  built  of  huge 
strength,  and  served  as  nests  of  plunderers,  who  preyed 
on  travellers  and  made  war  on  each  other,  grievously 
tormenting  one  another's  "  villeins  " — as  the  peasants 
were  termed.  Men  could  travel  nowhere  in  safety, 
and  horrid  ferocity  and  misery  prevailed.  The  first 
three  kings  were  good  and  pious  men,  but  too 
weak  to  deal  with  their  ruffian  nobles.  Robert^  called 
the  Pious,  was  extremely  devout,  but  weak.  He 
became  embroiled  with  the  Pope  on  account  of  having 
married  Bertha — a  lady  pronounced  to  be  within  the 
degrees  of  affinity  prohibited  by  the  Church.  He  was 
excommunicated,  but  held  out  till  there  was  a  great 
religious  reaction,  produced  by  the  belief  that  the 
world  would  end  in  looo.  In  this  expectation  many 
persons  left  their  land  untilled,  and  the  consequence 
was  a  terrible  famine,  followed  by  a  pestilence ;  and 
the  misery  of  France  was  probably  unequalled  in  this 
reign,  when  it  was  hardly  possible  to  pass  safely  from 
one  to  another  of  the  three  royal  cities,  Paris,  Orleans, 
and  Tours.  Beggars  swarmed,  and  the  king  gave  to 
them  everything  he  could  lay  his  hands  on,  and  even 
winked  at  their  stealing  gold  off*  his  dress,  to  the  great 
wrath  of  a  second  wife,  the  imperious  Constance  of 
Provence,  who,  coming  from  the  more  luxurious  and 
corrupt  south,  hated  and  despised  the  roughness  and 
asceticism  of  her  husband.    She  was  a  fierce  and 


I.]     EARLIER  KINGS  OF  HOUSE  OF  PARIS,  7 

passionate  woman,  and  brought  an  element  of  cruelty 
into  the  court.  In  this  reign  the  first  instance  of  per- 
secution to  the  death  for  heresy  took  place.  The  vic- 
tim had  been  the  queen's  confessor ;  but  so  far  was  she 
from  pitying  him  that  she  struck  out  one  of  his  eyes 
with  her  staff,  as  he  was  led  past  her  to  the  hut  where 
he  was  shut  in  and  burnt.  On  Robert's  death  Con- 
stance took  part  against  her  son,  Henry  /,  on  behalf 
of  his  younger  brother,  but  Henry  prevailed.  During 
his  reign  the  clergy  succeeded  in  proclaiming  what 
was  called  the  Truce  of  God,  which  forbade  war  and 
bloodshed  at  certain  seasons  of  the  year  and  on  certain 
days  of  the  week,  and  made  churches  and  clerical 
lands  places  of  refuge  and  sanctuary,  which  often 
indeed  protected  the  lawless,  but  which  also  saved 
the  weak  and  oppressed.  It  was  during  these  reigns 
that  the  Papacy  was  beginning  the  great  struggle  for 
temporal  power,  and  freedom  from  the  influence  of  the 
Empire,  which  resulted  in  the  increased  independence 
and  power  of  the  clergy.  The  religious  fervour  which 
had  begun  with  the  century  led  to  the  foundation  of 
many  monasteries,  and  to  much  grand  church  architec- 
ture. In  the  reign  of  Philip  Z,  William,  Duke  of  Nor- 
mandy, obtained  the  kingdom  of  England,  and  thus 
became  far  more  powerful  than  his  suzerain,  the  King 
of  France,  a  weak  man  of  vicious  habits,  who  lay  for 
many  years  of  his  life  under  sentence  of  excommuni- 
cation for  an  adulterous  marriage  with  Bertrade  de 


8 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


Montfort,  Countess  of  Anjou.  The  power  of  the  king 
and  of  the  law  was  probably  at  the  very  lowest  ebb 
during  the  time  of  Philip  I.,  though  minds  and  manners 
were  less  debased  than  in  the  former  century. 

S-  The  First  Crusade  (1095 — iioo). — Pilgrimage 
to  the  Holy  Land  had  now  become  one  great  means  by 
which  the  men  of  the  West  sought  pardon  for  their 
sins.  Jerusalem  had  long  been  held  by  the  Arabs, 
who  had  treated  the  pilgrims  well ;  but  these  had  been 
conquered  by  a  fierce  Turcoman  tribe,  who  robbed  and 
oppressed  the  pilgrims.  Peter  the  Hermit,  returning 
from  a  pilgrimage,  persuaded  Pope  Urban  II.  that  it 
would  be  well  to  stir  up  Christendom  to  drive  back 
the  Moslem  power,  and  deliver  Jerusalem  and  the 
holy  places.  Urban  II.  accordingly,  when  holding  a 
council  at  Clermont,  in  Auvergne,  permitted  Peter  to 
describe  in  glowing  words  the  miseries  of  pilgrims  and 
the  profanation  of  the  holy  places.    Cries  broke  out, 

God  wills  it ! "  and  multitudes  thronged  to  receive 
crosses  cut  out  in  cloth,  which  were  fastened  to  the 
shoulder,  and  pledged  the  wearer  to  the  holy  war  or 
crusade,  as  it  was  called.  Philip  1.  took  no  interest  in 
the  cause,  but  his  brother  Hugh,  Count  of  Vermandois, 
Stephen,  Count  of  Blois,  Robert,  Duke  of  Normandy, 
and  Raymond,  Count  of  Toulouse,  joined  the  expe- 
dition, which  was  made  under  Godfrey  of  Bouillon, 
Duke  of  Lower  Lorraine,  or  what  we  now  call  the 


I.] 


THE  FIRST  CRUSADE. 


9 


Netherlands.  The  crusade  proved  successful ;  Jeru- 
salem was  gained,  and  a  kingdom  of  detached  cities 
and  forts  was  founded  in  Palestine,  of  which  Godfrey- 
became  the  first  king.  The  whole  of  the  West  was  sup- 
posed to  keep  up  the  defence  of  the  Holy  Land,  but,  in 
fact,  most  of  those  who  went  as  armed  pilgrims  were 
either  French,  Normans,  or  Aquitanians  ;  and  the  men 
of  the  East  called  all.  alike  Franks.  Two  orders  of 
monks,  who  were  also  knights,  became  the  permanent 
defenders  of  the  kingdom — the  Knights  of  St.  John, 
also  called  Hospitallers,  because  they  also  lodged  pil- 
grims and  tended  the  sick ;  and  the  Knights  Templars. 
Both  had  establishments  in  different  countries  in 
Europe,  where  youths  were  trained  to  the  rules  of  their 
order.  The  old  custom  of  solemnly  girding  a  young 
warrior  with  his  sword  was  developing  into  a  system 
by  which  the  nobly  born  man  was  trained  through 
the  ranks  of  page  and  squire  to  full  knighthood,  and 
made  to  take  vows  which  bound  him  to  honourable 
customs  to  equals,  though,  unhappily,  no  account  was 
taken  of  his  inferiors. 

6.  Louis  VI.  and  VIL — Philip's  son,  Louis  VL, 
or  the  Fat,  was  the  first  able  man  whom  the  line  of 
Hugh  Capet  had  produced  since  it  mounted  the 
throne.  He  made  the  first  attempt  at  curbing  the 
nobles,  assisted  by  Suger,  the  Abbot  of  St.  Denys. 
The  only  possibility  of  doing  this  was  to  obtain  the 


lO 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


aid  of  one  party  of  nobles  against  another ;  and  when 
any  unusually  flagrant  offence  had  been  committed, 
Louis  called  together  the  nobles,  bishops,  and  abbots 
of  his  domain,  and  obtained  their  consent  and  assist- 
ance in  making  war  on  the  guilty  man,  and  over- 
throwing his  castle,  thus,  in  some  degree,  lessening 
the  sense  of  utter  impunity  which  had  caused  so 
many  violences  and  such  savage  recklessness.  He 
also  permitted  a  few  of  the  cities  to  purchase  the 
right  of  self-government,  and  freedom  from  the  ill 
usage  of  the  counts,  who,  from  their  guardians,  had 
become  their  tyrants ;  but  in  this  he  seems  not  to 
have  been  so  much  guided  by  any  fixed  principle,  as 
by  his  private  interests  and  feelings  towards  the  in- 
dividual city  or  lord  in  question.  However,  the  royal 
authority  had  begun  to  be  respected  by  1137,  when 
Louis  VL  died,  having  just  effected  the  marriage  of 
his  son,  Loicis  VI with  Eleanor,  the  heiress  of  the 
Dukes  of  Aquitaine — thus  hoping  to  make  the  crown 
really  more  powerful  than  the  great  princes  who  owed 
it  homage.  At  this  time  lived  the  great  St.  Bernard, 
Abbot  of  Clairvaux,  who  had  a  wonderful  influence 
over  men's  minds.  It  was  a  time  of  much  thought 
and  speculation,  and  Peter  Abailard,  an  able  student 
of  the  Paris  University,  held  a  controversy  with  Ber- 
nard, in  which  we  see  the  first  struggle  between  in- 
tellect and  authority.  Bernard  roused  the  young 
king,  Louis  VH.,  to  go  on  the  second  crusade,  which 


I.] 


LOUIS  VL  AND  VI L 


II 


was  undertaken  by  the  Emperor  and  the  other  princes 
of  Europe  to  relieve  the  distress  of  the  kingdom  of 
Palestine.  France  had  no  navy,  so,  the  war  was  by 
land,  through  the  rugged  hills  of  Asia  Minor,-  where 
the  army  was  almost  destroyed  by  the  Saracens. 
Though  Louis  did  reach  Palestine,  it  was  with 
weakened  forces ;  he  could  effect  nothing  by  his 
campaign,  and  Eleanor,  who  had  accompanied  him, 
seems  to  have  been  entirely  corrupted  by  the  evil 
habits  of  the  Franks  *  settled  in  the  East.  Soon 
after  his  return,  Louis  dissolved  his  marriage ;  and 
Eleanor  became  the  wife  of  Henry,  Count  of  Anjou, 
who  soon  after  inherited  the  kingdom  of  England  as 
our  Henry  IL,  as  well  as  the  duchy  of  Normandy, 
and  betrothed  his  third  son  to  the  heiress  of  Brittany. 
Eleanor's  marriage  seemed  to  undo  all  that  Louis  VL 
had  done  in  raising  the  royal  power ;  for  Henry  com- 
pletely overshadowed  Louis,  whose  only  resource  was 
in  feeble  endeavours  to  take  part  against  him  in  his 
many  family  quarrels.  The  whole  reign  of  Louis  the 
Young,  the  title  that  adhered  to  him  on  account  of 
his  simple,  childish  nature,  is  only  a  record  of  weak- 
ness and  disaster,  till  he  died  in  1180.  What  life 
went  on  in  France,  went  on  principally  in  the  south. 
The  lands  of  Aquitaine  and  Provence  had  never 
dropped  the  old  classical  love  of  poetry  and  art. 
A  softer  form  of  broken  Latin  was  then  spoken,  and 
the  art  of  minstrelsy  was  frequent  among  all  ranks. 


12 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


Poets  were  called  troubadours  and  trouvhes  (finders). 
Courts  of  love  were  held,  where  there  were  com- 
petitions in  poetry,  the  prize  being  a  golden  violet; 
and  many  of  the  bravest  warriors  were  also  distin- 
guished troubadours — among  them  the  elder  sons  of 
Queen  Eleanor.  There  was  much  license  of  manners, 
much  turbulence ;  and  as  the  Aquitanians  hated 
Angevin  rule,  the  troubadours  never  ceased  to  stir 
up  the  sons  of  Henry  11.  against  him. 

7.  Philip  II.  (1180 — 1223). — Powerful  in  fact  as 
Henry  II.  was,  it  was  his  gathering  so  large  a  part  of 
France  under  his  rule  which  was,  in  the  end,  to  build 
up  the  greatness  of  the  French  kings.  What  had 
held  them  in  check  was  the  existence  of  the  great 
fiefs  or  provinces,  each  with  its  own  line  of  dukes  or 
counts,  and  all  practically  independent  of  the  king. 
But  now  nearly  all  the  provinces  of  southern  and 
western  France  were  gathered  into  the  hand  of  a 
single  ruler ;  and  though  he  was  a  Frenchman  in 
blood,  yet^  as  he  was  King  of  England,  this  ruler 
seemed  to  his  French  subjects  no  Frenchman,  but  a 
foreigner.  They  began  therefore  to  look  to  the 
French  king  to  free  them  from  a  foreign  ruler ;  and 
the  son  of  Louis  VI L,  called  Philip  Augustus,  was 
ready  to  take  advantage  of  their  disposition.  Philip 
was  a  really  able  man,  making  up  by  address  for  want 
of  personal  courage.     He  set  himself  to  lower  the 


I.] 


PHILIP  II 


13 


power  of  the  house  of  Anjou  and  increase  that  of 
the  house  of  Paris.  As  a  boy  he  had  watched  con- 
ferences between  his  father  and  Henry  under  the 
great  elm  of  Gisors,  on  the  borders  of  Normandy, 
and  seeing  his  father  overreached,  he  laid  up  a 
store  of  hatred  to  the  rival  king.  As  soon  as  he 
had  the  power,  he  cut  down  the  elm,  which  was  so 
large  that  300  horsemen  could  be  sheltered  under  its 
branches.  He  supported  the  sons  of  Henry  II.  in 
their  rebellions,  and  was  always  the  bitter  foe  of  the 
head  of  the  family.  Philip  assumed  the  cross  in  1187, 
on  the  tidings  of  the  loss  of  Jerusalem,  and  in  11 90 
joined  Richard  I.  of  England  at  Messina,  where  they 
wintered,  and  then  sailed  for  St.  Jean  d'Acre.  After 
this  city  was  taken,  Philip  returned  to  France,  where 
he  continued  to  profit  by  the  crimes  and  dissensions 
of  the  Angevins,  and  gained,  both  as  their  enemy 
and  as  King  of  France.  When  Richard's  successor, 
John,  murdered  Arthur,  the  heir  of  the  dukedom  of 
Brittany  and  claimant  of  both  Anjou  and  Normandy, 
Philip  took  advantage  of  the  general  indignation  to 
hold  a  court  of  peers,  in  which  John,  on  his  non- 
appearance, was  adjudged  to  have  forfeited  his  fiefs. 
In  the  war  which  followed  and  ended  in  1204, 
Philip  not  only  gained  the  great  Norman  dukedom, 
which  gave  him  the  command  of  Rouen  and  of  the 
mouth  of  the  Seine,  as  well  as  Anjou,  Maine,  and 
Poitou,  the  countries  which  held  the  Loire  in  their 


14 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


power,  but  established  the  precedent  that  a  crown 
vassal  was  amenable  to  justice,  and  might  be  made  to 
forfeit  his  lands.  What  he  had  won  by  the  sword 
he  held  by  wisdom  and  good  government.  Seeing 
that  the  cities  were  capable  of  being  made  to  balance 
the  power  of  the  nobles,  he  granted  them  privileges 
which  caused  him  to  be  esteemed  their  best  friend, 
and  he  promoted  all  improvements.  Though  once 
laid  under  an  interdict  by  Pope  Innocent  III.  for 
an  unlawful  mairiage,  Philip  usually  followed  the 
policy  which  gained  for  the  Kings  of  France  the  title 
of  "Most  Christian  King."  The  real  meaning  of  this 
was  that  he  should  always  support  the  Pope  against 
the  Emperor,  and  in  return  be  allowed  more  than 
ordinary  power  over  his  clergy.  The  great  feudal 
vassals  of  eastern  France,  with  a  strong  instinct  that 
he  was  their  enemy,  made  a  league  with  the  Emperor 
Otto  IV.  and  his  uncle  King  John,  against  Philip 
Augustus.  John  attacked  him  in  the  south,  and  was 
repulsed  by  Philip's  son,  Louis,  called  the  "Lion;" 
while  the  king  himself,  backed  by  the  burghers  of  his 
chief  cities,  gained  at  Bouvines,  over  Otto,  the  first 
real  French  victory,  in  12 14,  thus  establishing  the 
power  of  the  crown.  Two  years  later,  Louis  the 
Lion,  who  had  married  John's  niece,  Blanche  of 
Castile,  was  invited  by  the  English  barons  to  become 
their  king  on  John's  refusing  to  be  bound  by  the 
Great  Charter;  and  Philip  saw  his  son  actually  in 


I.] 


THE  ALBIGENSES, 


15 


possession  of  London  at  the  time  of  the  death  of  the 
last  of  the  sons  of  his  enemy,  Henry  II.  On  John's 
death,  however,  the  barons  preferred  his  child  to  the 
French  prince,  and  fell  away  from  Louis,  who  was 
forced  to  return  to  France. 

8.  The  Albigenses  (1203 — 1240). — The  next 
great  step  in  the  building  up  of  the  French  kingdom 
was  made  by  taking  advantage  of  a  religious  strife  in 
the  south.  The  lands  near  the  Mediterranean  still 
had  much  of  the  old  Roman  cultivation,  and  also  of 
the  old  corruption,  and  here  arose  a  sect  called  the 
Albigenses,  who  held  opinions  other  than  those  of 
the  Church  on  the  origin  of  evil.  Pope  Innocent 
III.,  after  sending  some  of  the  order  of  friars  freshly 
established  by  the  Spaniard,  Dominic,  to  preach  to 
them  in  vain,  declared  them  as  great  enemies  of 
the  faith  as  Mahometans,  and  proclaimed  a  crusade 
against  them  and  their  chief  supporter,  Raymond, 
Count  of  Toulouse.  Shrewd  old  King  Phihp  merely 
permitted  this  crusade;  but  the  dislike  of  the  north 
of  France  to  the  south  made  hosts  of  adventurers  flock 
to  the  banner  of  its  leader,  Simon  de  Montfort,  a 
Norman  baron,  devout  and  honourable,  but  harsh  and 
pitiless.  Dreadful  execution  was  done ;  the  whole 
country  was  laid  waste,  and  Raymond  reduced  to 
such  distress  that  Peter  I.,  King  of  Aragon,  who  was 
regarded  as  the  natural  head  of  the  southern  races, 


i6 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


came  to  his  aid,  but  was  defeated  and  slain  at  the 
battle  of  Muret.  After  this  Raymond  was  forced  to 
submit,  but  such  hard  terms  were  forced  on  him  that 
his  people  revolted.  His  country  was  granted  to  De 
Montfort,  who  laid  siege  to  Toulouse,  and  was  killed 
before  he  could  take  the  city.  The  war  was  then 
carried  on  by  Loicis  the  Lmt,  who  had  succeeded 
his  father  as  Louis  VIII.  in  1223,  though  only  to 
reign  three  years,  as  he  died  of  a  fever  caught  in  a 
southern  campaign  in  1226.  His  widow,  Blanche, 
made  peace  in  the  name  of  her  son,  Louis  IX.,  and 
Raymond  was  forced  to  give  his  only  daughter  in 
marriage  to  one  of  her  younger  sons.  On  their 
death,  the  county  of  Toulouse  lapsed  to  the  crown, 
which  thus  became  possessor  of  all  southern  France, 
save  Guienne,  which  still  remained  to  the  Enghsh 
kings.  But  the  whole  of  the  district  once  peopled 
by  the  Albigenses  had  been  so  much  wasted  as  never 
to  recover  its  prosperity,  and  any  cropping  up  of 
their  opinions  was  guarded  against  by  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Inquisition,  which  appointed  Dominican 
friars  to  inquire  into  and  exterminate  all  that  differed 
from  the  Church.  At  the  same  time  the  order  of  St. 
Francis  did  much  to  instruct  and  quicken  the  con- 
sciences of  the  people ;  and  at  the  universities — 
especially  that  of  Paris — a  great  advance  both  in 
thought  and  learning  was  made.  Louis  IX.'s  con- 
fessor, Henry  de  Sorbonne,  founded,  for  the  study  of 


I.]      '        THE  PARLIAMENT  OF  PARIS,  17 

divinity,  the  college  which  was  known  by  his  name, 
and  whose  decisions  were  afterwards  received  as  of 
paramount  authority. 

9.  The  Parliament  of  Paris. — France  had  a 
wise  ruler  in  Blanche,  and  a  still  better  one  in  her 
son,  Louis  /X.,  who  is  better  known  as  SL  Loin's,  and 
who  was  a  really  good  and  great  man.  He  was  the 
first  to  establish  the  Parliament  of  Paris — a  court  con- 
sisting of  the  great  feudal  vassals,  lay  and  ecclesiastical, 
who  held  of  the  king  direct,  and  who  had-  to  try  all 
causes.  They  much  disliked  giving  such  attendance, 
and  a  certain  number  of  men  trained  to  the  law  were 
added  to  them  to  guide  the  decisions.  The  Parlia- 
ment was  thus  only  a  court  of  justice  and  an  office  for 
registering  wills  and  edicts.  The  representative  assem- 
bly of  France  was  called  the  States-General,  and  con- 
sisted of  all  estates  of  the  realm,  but  was  only  sum- 
moned in  time  of  emergency.  Louis  IX.  was  the  first 
king  to  bring  nobles  of  the  highest  rank  to  submit  to 
the  judgment  of  Parliament  when  guilty  of  a  crime. 
Enguerrand  de  Coucy,  one  of  the  proudest  nobles  of 
France,  who  had  hung  two  Flemish  youths  for  killing 
a  rabbit,  was  sentenced  to  death.  The  penalty  was 
commuted,  but  the  principle  was  established.  Louis's 
uprightness  and  wisdom  gained  him  honour  and  love 
everywhere,  and  he  was  always  remembered  as  sitting 
under  the  great  oak  at  Vincennes,  doing  equal  justice  to 


i8 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


rich  and  poor.  Louis  was  equally  upright  in  his  dealings 
with  foreign  powers.  He  would  not  take  advantage  of 
the  weakness  of  Henry  HI.  of  England  to  attack  his 
lands  in  Guienne,  though  he  maintained  the  right  of 
France  to  Normandy  as  having  been  forfeited  by  King 
John.  So  much  was  he  respected  that  he  was  called 
in  to  judge  between  Henry  and  his  barons,  respecting 
the  oaths  exacted  from  the  king  by  the  Mad  Parlia- 
ment. His  decision  in  favour  of  Henry  was  probably 
an  honest  one;  but  he  was  misled  by  the  very 
different  relations  of  the  French  and  English  kings  to 
their  nobles,  who  in  France  maintained  lawlessness 
and  violence,  while  in  England  they  were  struggling 
for  law  and  order.  Throughout  the  struggles  between 
the  Popes  and  the  Emperor  Frederick  H.,  Louis  would 
not  be  induced  to  assist  in  a  persecution  of  the  Em- 
peror which  he  considered  unjust,  nor  permit  one  of 
his  sons  to  accept  the  kingdom  of  Apulia  and  Sicily, 
when  the  Pope  declared  that  Frederick  had  forfeited 
it.  He  could  not,  however,  prevent  his  brother 
Charles,  Count  of  Anjou,  from  accepting  it;  for  Charles 
had  married  Beatrice,  heiress  of  the  imperial  fief  of 
Provence,  and  being  thus  independent  of  his  brother 
Louis,  was  able  to  establish  a  branch  of  the  French 
royal  family  on  the  throne  at  Naples.  The  reign  of 
St.  Louis  was  a  time  of  much  progress  and  improve-^ 
ment.  There  were  great  scholars  and  thinkers  at  all 
the  universities.    Romance  and  poetry  were  flourish- 


I.]  CRUSADE  OF  LOUIS  IX.  19 

ing,  and  influencing  people's  habits,  so  that  courtesy, 
the  manners  taught  in  castle  courts,  was  softening 
the  demeanour  of  knights  and  nobles.  Architecture 
was  at  its  most  beautiful  period,  as  is  seen,  above  all, 
in  the  wSainte  Chapelle  at  Paris.  This  was  built  by 
Louis  IX.  to  receive  a  gift  of  the  Greek  F^mperor, 
namely,  a  thorn,  which  was  beUeved  to  be  from  the 
crown  of  thorns.  It  is  one  of  the  most  perfect 
buildings  in  existence. 

10.  Crusade  of  Louis  IX. — Unfortunately,  Louis, 
during  a  severe  illness,  made  a  vow  to  go  on  a  cru- 
sade. His  first  fulfilment  of  this  vow  was  made  early 
in  his  reign,  in  1250,  when  his  mother  was  still 
alive  to  undertake  the  regency.  His  attempt  was 
to  attack  the  heart  of  the  Saracen  power  in  Egypt, 
and  he  effected  a  landing  and  took  the  city  of 
Damietta.  There  he  left  his  queen,  and  advanced 
on  Cairo;  but  near  Mansourah  he  found  himself 
entangled  in  the  canals  of  the  Nile,  and  with  a  great 
army  of  Mamelukes  in  front.  A  ford  was  found, 
and  the  English  Earl  of  Salisbury,  who  had  brought 
a  troop  to  join  the  crusade,  advised  that  the  first  to 
cross  should  wait  and  guard  the  passage  of  the  next. 
But  the  king's  brother,  Robert,  Count  of  Artois,  called 
this  cowardice.  The  earl  was  stung,  and  declared  he 
would  be  as  forward  among  the  foe  as  any  French- 
man. They  both  charged  headlong,  were  enclosed  by 
12* 


20 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


the  enemy,  and  slain  ;  and  though  the  king  at  last  put 
the  Mamelukes  to  flight,  his  loss  was  dreadful.  The 
Nile  rose  and  cut  off  his  return.  He  lost  great  part  of 
his  troops  from  sickness,  and  was  horribly  harassed  by 
the  Mamelukes,  who  threw  among  his  host  a  strange 
burning  missile,  called  Greek  fire ;  and  he  was  finally 
forced  to  surrender  himself  as  a  prisoner  at  Man- 
sourah,  with  all  his  army.  He  obtained  his  release  by 
giving  up  Damietta,  and  paying  a  heavy  ransom. 
After  twenty  years,  in  1270,  he  attempted  another 
crusade,  which  was  still  more  unfortunate,  for  he 
landed  at  Tunis  to  wait  for  his  brother  to  arrive  from 
Sicily,  apparently  on  some  delusion  of  favourable  dis- 
positions on  the  part  of  the  Bey.  Sickness  broke  out 
in  the  camp,  and  the  king,  his  daughter,  and  his  third 
son  all  died  of  fever ;  and  so  fatal  was  the  expedition, 
that  his  son  Philip  IH.  returned  to  France  escorting 
five  coffins,  those  of  his  father,  his  brother,  his  sister 
and  her  husband,  and  his  own  wife  and  child. 

II.  Philip  the  Fair.— The  reign  of  Philip  II L 
was  very  short.  The  insolence  and  cruelty  of  the 
Provengals  in  Sicily  had  provoked  the  natives  to  a 
massacre  known  as  the  Sicilian  Vespers,  and  they 
then  called  in  the  King  of  Aragon,  who  finally 
obtained  the  island,  as  a  separate  kingdom  from 
that  on  the  Italian  mainland  where  Charles  of 
Anjou  and  his  descendants  still  reigned.  While 


I.] 


PHILIP  THE  FAIR, 


21 


fighting  his  uncle's  battles  on  the  Pyrenees,  and  be- 
sieging Gerona,  Philip  III.  caught  a  fever,  and  died 
on  his  way  home  in  1285.  His  successor,  Philip  IV., 
called  the  Fair,  was  crafty,  cruel,  and  greedy,  and 
made  the  Parliament  of  Paris  the  instrument  of  his 
violence  and  exactions,  which  he  carried  out  in  the 
name  of  the  law.  To  prevent  Guy  de  Dampierre, 
Count  of  Flanders,  from  marrying  his  daughter  to  the 
son  of  Edward  I.  of  England,  he  invited  her  and  her 
father  to  his  court,  and  threw  them  both  into  prison, 
while  he  offered  his  own  daughter  Isabel  to  Edward 
of  Carnarvon  in  her  stead.  The  Scottish  wars  pre- 
vented Edward  I.  from  taking  up  the  cause  of  Guy ; 
but  the  Pope,  Boniface  VIIL,  a  man  of  a  fierce 
temper,  though  of  a  great  age,  loudly  called  on  Philip 
to  do  justice  to  Flanders,  and  likewise  blamed  in  un- 
measured terms  his  exactions  from  the  clergy,  his 
debasement  of  the  coinage,  and  his  foul  and  vicious 
life.  Furious  abuse  passed  on  both  sides.  Philip 
availed  himself  of  a  flaw  in  the  Pope's  election  to 
threaten  him  with  deposition,  and  in  return  was  ex- 
communicated. He  then  sent  a  French  knight  named 
William  de  Nogaret,  with  Sciarra  Colonna,  a  turbulent 
Roman,  the  hereditary  enemy  of  Boniface,  and  a  band 
of  savage  mercenary  soldiers  to  Anagni,  where  the 
Pope  then  was,  to  force  him  to  recall  the  sentence,  ap- 
parently intending  them  to  act  like  the  murderers  of 
Becket.    The  old  man's  dignity,  however,  overawed 


22 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


them  at  the  moment,  and  they  retired  without  laying 
hands  on  him,  but  the  shock  he  had  undergone  caused 
his  death  a  few  days  later.  His  successor  was  poisoned 
almost  immediately  on  his  election,  being  known  to  be 
adverse  to  Philip.  Parties  were  equally  balanced  in 
the  conclave  ;  but  Philip's  friends  advised  him  to  buy 
over  to  his  interest  one  of  his  supposed  foes,  whom 
they  would  then  unite  in  choosing.  Bertrand  de 
Goth,  Archbishop  of  Bordeaux,  was  the  man,  and  in  a 
secret  interview  promised  Philip  to  fulfil  six  conditions 
if  he  were  made  Pope  by  his  interest.  These  were  : 
I  St,  the  reconciliation  of  Philip  with  the  Church  ;  2nd, 
that  of  his  agents  ;  3rd,  a  grant  to  the  king  of  a  tenth 
of  all  clerical  property  for  five  years ;  4th,  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Colonna  family  to  Rome;  5  th,  the  censure 
of  Boniface's  memory.  These  five  were  carried  out 
by  Clement  V.,  as  he  called  himself,  as  soon  as  he  was 
on  the  Papal  throne  ;  the  sixth  remained  a  secret,  but 
was  probably  the  destruction  of  the  Knights  Templars. 
This  order  of  military  monks  had  been  created  for 
the  defence  of  the  crusading  kingdom  of  Jerusalem, 
and  had  acquired  large  possessions  in  Europe.  Now 
that  their  occupation  in  the  East  was  gone,  they  were 
hated  and  dreaded  by  the  kings,  and  Philip  was  resolved 
on  their  wholesale  destruction. 

12.  The  Papacy  at  Avignon. — Clement  had 
never  quitted  France,  but  had  gone  through  the  cere- 


I. ]  THE  PAPACY  AT  A  VIGNON.  23 

monies  of  his  installation  at  Lyons ;  and  Philip,  fearing 
that  in  Italy  he  would  avoid  carrying  out  the  scheme 
for  the  ruin  of  the  Templars,  had  him  conducted  to 
Avignon,  a  city  of  the  Empire  which  belonged  to  the 
Angevin  King  of  Naples,  as  Count  of  Provence,  and 
there  for  eighty  years  the  Papal  court  remained.  As 
they  were  thus  settled  close  to  the  French  frontier, 
the  Popes  became  almost  vassals  of  France  ;  and  this 
added  greatly  to  the  power  and  renown  of  the  French 
kings.  How  real  their  hold  on  the  Papacy  was,  was 
shown  in  the  ruin  of  the  Templars.  The  order  was 
now  abandoned  by  the  Pope,  and  its  knights  were 
invited  in  large  numbers  to  Paris,  under  pretence  of 
arranging  a  crusade.  Having  been  thus  entrapped, 
they  were  accused  of  horrible  and  monstrous  crimes, 
and  torture  elicited  a  few  supposed  confessions.  They 
were  then  tried  by  the  Inquisition,  and  the  greater 
number  were  put  to  death  by  fire,  the  Grand  Master 
last  of  all,  while  their  lands  were  seized  by  the  king. 
They  seem  to  have  been  really  a  fierce,  arrogant,  and 
oppressive  set  of  men,  or  else  there  must  have  been 
some  endeavour  to  save  them,  belonging,  as  most 
of  them  did,  to  noble  French  famihes.  The  ''Pest 
of  France,'^  as  Dante  calls  Philip  the  Fair,  was 
now  the  most  formidable  prince  in  Europe.  He 
contrived  to  annex  to  his  dominions  the  city  of 
Lyons,  hitherto  an  imperial  city  under  its  archbishop. 
Philip  died  in  13 14;  and  his  three  sons — Louis  X.^ 


24 


FRANCE. 


[chap.  I. 


Philip  F.,  and  Cha7ies  IV, — were  as  cruel  and  harsh 
as  himself,  but  without  his  talent,  and  brought  the 
crown  and  people  to  disgrace  and  misery.  Each 
reigned  a  few  years  and  then  died,  leaving  only 
daughters,  and  the  question  arose  whether  the  inherit- 
ance should  go  to  females.  When  Louis  X.  died,  in 
13 1 6,  his  brother  Philip,  after  waiting  for  the  birth  of  a 
posthumous  child  who  only  lived  a  few  days,  took  the 
crown,  and  the  Parliament  then  declared  that  the  law 
of  the  old  Salian  Franks  had  been  against  the  in- 
heritance of  women.  By  this  newly  discovered  Salic 
law,  Charles  IV.,  the  third  brother,  reigned  on  Phihp's 
death  ;  but  the  kingdom  of  Navarre  having  accrued 
to  the  family  through  their  grandmother,  and  not 
being  subject  to  the  Salic  law,  went  to  the  eldest 
daughter  of  Louis  X.,  Jane,  wife  of  the  Count  of 
Evreux. 


CHAPTER  11. 

THE  HUNDRED  YEARS'  WAR. 

I.  Wars  of  Edward  III. — By  the  Salic  law, 
as  the  lawyers  called  it,  the  crown  was  given,  on 
the  death  of  Charles  IV.,  to  Philips  Count  of  Valois, 
son  to  a  brother  of  Philip  IV.,  but  it  was  claimed 
by  Edward  III.  of  England  as  son  of  the  daughter 
of  Philip  IV.  Edward  contented  himself,  however, 
with  the  mere  assertion  of  his  pretensions,  until  Philip 
exasperated  him  by  attacks  on  the  borders  of  Guienne, 
which  the  French  kings  had  long  been  coveting  to 
complete  their  possession  of  the  south,  and  by  demand- 
ing the  surrender  of  Robert  of  Artois,  who,  being 
disappointed  in  his  claim  to  the  county  of  Artois 
by  the  judgment  ol  the  Parhament  of  Paris,  was 
practising  by  sorcery  on  the  life  of  the  King  of  France. 
Edward  then  declared  war,  and  his  supposed  right 
caused  a  century  of  warfare  between  France  and  Eng- 
land, in  which  the  broken,  down-trodden  state  of  the 
French  peasantry  gave  England  an  immense  advantage. 


26 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


The  knights  and  squires  were  fairly  matched ;  but 
while  the  English  yeomen  were  strong,  staunch,  and 
trustworthy,  the  French  were  useless,  and  only  made 
a  defeat  worse  by  plundering  the  fallen  on  each  side 
alike.  The  war  began  in  Flanders,  where  Philip  took 
the  part  of  the  count,  whose  tyrannies  had  caused  his 
expulsion.  Edward  was  called  in  to  the  aid  of  the 
citizens  of  Ghent  by  their  leader  Jacob  van  Arteveldt; 
and  gained  a  great  victory  over  the  French  fleet  at 
Sluys,  but  with  no  important  result.  At  the  same  time 
the  two  kings  took  opposite  sides  in  the  war  of  the 
succession  in  Brittany,  each  defending  the  claim  most 
inconsistent  with  his  own  pretensions  to  the  French 
crown — Edward  upholding  the  male  heir,  John  de 
Montfort,  and  Philip  the  direct  female  representative, 
the  wife  of  Charles  de  Blois. 

2.  Crecy  and  Poitiers.— Further  difficulties 
arose  through  Charles  the  Bad,  King  of  Navarre 
and  Count  of  Evreux,  who  was  always  on  the  watch 
to  assert  his  claim  to  the  French  throne  through 
his  mother,  the  daughter  of  Louis  X.,  and  was 
much  hated  and  distrusted  by  Philip  VI.  and  his 
son  John,  Duke  of  Normandy.  Fearing  the  dis- 
affection of  the  Norman  and  ^I'eton  nobles,  Philip 
invited  a  number  of  them  to  a  tournament  at  Paris, 
and  there  had  them  put  to  death  after  a  hasty  form 
of  trial,  thus  driving  their  kindred   to    join  his 


11.] 


CRECY  AND  POITIERS. 


27 


enemies.  One  of  these  offended  Normans,  Godfrey  of 
Harcourt,  invited  Edward  to  Normandy,  where  he 
landed,  and  having  consumed  his  suppHes  was  on  his 
march  to  Flanders,  when  Philip,  with  the  whole  strength 
of  the  kingdom,  endeavoured  to  intercept  him  at 
Cregy  in  Picardy,  in  1348.  Philip  was  utterly  in- 
capable as  a  general ;  his  knights  were  wrong-headed 
and  turbulent,  and  absolutely  cut  down  their  own 
Genoese  hired  archers  for  being  in  their  way.  The 
defeat  was  total.  Philip  rode  away  to  Amiens,  and 
Edward  laid  siege  to  Calais.  The  place  was  so 
strong  that  he  was  forced  to  blockade  it,  and  Philip 
had  time  to  gather  another  army  to  attempt  its  relief ; 
but  the  English  army  were  so  posted  that  he  could 
not  attack  them  without  great  loss.  He  retreated, 
and  the  men  of  Calais  surrendered,  Edward  insisting 
that  six  burghers  should  bring  him  the  keys  with  ropes 
round  their  necks,  to  submit  themselves  to  him.  Six 
offered  themselves,  but  their  lives  were  spared,  and 
they  were  honourably  treated.  Edward  expelled  all  the 
French,  and  made  Calais  an  English  settlement.  A 
truce  followed,  chiefly  in  consequence  of  the  ravages 
of  the  Black  Death,  which  swept  off  multitudes 
throughout  Europe,  a  pestilence  apparently  bred 
by  filth,  famine,  and  all  the  miseries  of  war  and  law- 
lessness, but  which  spared  no  ranks.  It  had  scarcely 
ceased  before  Philip  died,  in  1350.  His  son,  John^ 
was  soon  involved  in  a  fresh  war  with  England  by  the 


28 


FRANCE, 


[chap* 


intrigues  of  Charles  the  Bad,  and  in  1356  advanced 
southwards  to  check  the  Prince  of  Wales,  who  had 
come  out  of  Guienne  on  a  plundering  expedition. 
The  French  were  again  totally  routed  at  Poitiers,  and 
the  king  himself,  with  his  third  son,  Philip,  were  made 
prisoners  and  carried  to  London  with  most  of  the 
chief  nobles. 

3.  The  Jacquerie. — The  calls  made  on  their 
vassals  by  these  captive  nobles  to  supply  their 
ransoms  brought  the  misery  to  a  height.  The  salt  tax, 
or  gabelle,  which  was  first  imposed  to  meet  the  ex- 
penses of  the  war,  was  only  paid  by  those  who  were 
neither  clergy  nor  nobles,  and  the  general  saying  was 
— "Jacques  Bonhomme  (the  nickname  for  the  peasant) 
has  a  broad  back,  let  him  bear  all  the  burthens." 
Either  by  the  king,  the  feudal  lords,  the  clergy,  or 
the  bands  of  men-at-arms  who  roved  through  the 
country,  selling  themselves  to  any  prince  who  would 
employ  them,  the  wretched  people  were  stripped  of 
everything,  and  used  to  hide  in  holes  and  caves 
from  ill-usage  or  insult,  till  they  broke  out  in  a  re- 
bellion called  the  Jacquerie,  and  whenever  they 
could  seize  a  castle  revenged  themselves,  like  the 
brutes  they  had  been  made,  on  those  within  it. 
Taxation  was  so  levied  by  the  king's  officers  as  to 
be  frightfully  oppressive,  and  corruption  reigned  every- 
where;    As   the  king  was   in  prison,  and  his  heir, 


II.] 


THE  JACQUERIE, 


29 


Charles,  had  fled  ignommiously  from  Poitiers,  the  citi- 
zens of  Paris  hoped  to  effect  a  reform,  and  rose  with 
their  provost-marshal,  Stephen  Marcel,  at  their  head, 
threatened  Charles,  and  slew  two  of  his  officers  be- 
fore his  eyes.  On  their  demand  the  States-General 
were  convoked,  and  made  wholesome  regulations 
as  to  the  manner  of  collecting  the  taxes,  but  no  one, 
except  perhaps  Marcel,  had  any  real  zeal  or  public 
spirit.  Charles  the  Bad,  of  Navarre,  who  had  pretended 
to  espouse  their  cause,  betrayed  it ;  the  king  declared 
the  decisions  of  the  States-General  null  and  void  ;  and 
the  crafty  management  of  his  son  prevented  any  union 
between  the  malcontents.  The  gentry  rallied,  and  put 
down  the  Jacquerie  with  horrible  cruelty  and  revenge. 
The  burghers  of  Paris  found  that  Charles  the  Bad  only 
wanted  to  gain  the  throne,  and  Marcel  would  have 
proclaimed  him ;  but  those  who  thought  him  even  worse 
than  his  cousins  of  Valois  admitted  the  other  Charles, 
by  whom  Marcel  and  his  partisans  were  put  to  death. 
The  attempt  at  reform  thus  ended  in  talk  and  murder, 
and  all  fell  back  into  the  same  state  of  misery  and 
oppression. 

4.  The  Peace  of  Bretigny.  —  This  Charles, 

eldest  son  of  John,  obtained  by  purchase  the  imperial 

fief  of  Vienne,  of  which  the  counts  had  ahmys  been 

called  Dauphins,  a  title  thenceforth  borne  by  the  heir 

apparent  of  the  kingdom.    His  father's  captivity  and 
4 


30 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


the  submission  of  Paris  left  him  master  of  the  realm ; 
but  he  did  little  to  defend  it  when  Edward  III.  again 
attacked  it,  and  in  1360  he  was  forced  to  bow  to  the 
terms  which  the  English  king  demanded  as  the  price 
of  peace.  The  Peace  of  Bretigny  permitted  King 
John  to  ransom  himself,  but  resigned  to  England  the 
sovereignty  over  the  duchy  of  Aquitaine,  and  left 
Calais  and  Ponthieu  in  the  hands  of  Edward  III 
John  died  in  1364,  before  his  ransom  was  paid,  and 
his  son  mounted  the  tlirone  as  Charles  V .  Charles 
showed  himself  from  this  time  a  wary,  able  man,  and 
did  much  to  regain  what  had  been  lost  by  craftily 
watching  his  opportunity.  The  war  went  on  between 
the  allies  of  each  party,  though  the  French  and 
English  kings  professed  to  be  at  peace  ;  and  at  the 
battle  of  Cocherel,  in  1364,  Charles  the  Bad  was 
defeated,  and  forced  to  make  peace  with  France. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  French  party  in  Brittany, 
led  by  Charles  de  Blois  and  the  gallant  Breton 
knight,  Bertrand  du  GuescHn,  were  routed,  the  same 
year,  by  the  English  party  under  Sir  John  Chandos  ; 
Charles  de  Blois  was  killed,  and  the  house  of  Mont- 
fort  established  in  the  duchy.  These  years  of  war 
had  created  a  dreadful  class  of  men,  namely,  hired 
soldiers  of  all  nations,  who,  under  some  noted  leader, 
sold  their  services  to  whatever  prince  might  need  them, 
under  the  name  of  Free  Companies,  and  when  un- 
employed lived  by  plunder.     The  peace  had  only 


II.] 


RENEWAL  OF  THE  WAR, 


31 


let  these  wretches  loose  on  the  peasants.  Some  had 
seized  castles,  whence  they  could  plunder  travellers ; 
others  roamed  the  country,  preying  on  the  miserable 
peasants,  who,  fleeced  as  they  were  by  king,  barons, 
and  clergy,  were  tortured  and  murdered  by  these 
ruffians,  so  that  many  lived  in  holes  in  the  ground 
that  their  dwellings  might  not  attract  attention.  Ber- 
trand  du  Guesclin  offered  the  king  to  relieve  the 
country  from  these  Free  Companies  by  leading  them 
to  assist  the  Castilians  against  their  tyrannical  king, 
Peter  the  Cruel.  Edward,  the  Black  Prince,  who  was 
then  acting  as  Governor  of  Aquitaine,  took,  however, 
the  part  of  Peter,  and  defeated  Du  Guesclin  at  the 
battle  of  Navarete,  on  the  Ebro,  in  1367. 

5.  Renewal  of  the  War, — This  expedition 
ruined  the  prince's  health,  and  exhausted  his  treasury. 
A  hearth-tax  was  laid  on  the  inhabitants  of  Aquitaine, 
and  they  appealed  against  it  to  the  King  of  France, 
although,  by  the  Peace  of  Bretigny,  he  had  given  up 
all  right  to  hear  appeals  as  suzerain.  The  treaty, 
however,  was  still  not  formally  settled,  and  on  this 
ground  Charles  received  their  complaint.  The  war 
thus  began  again,  and  the  sword  of  the  Constable  of 
France — the  highest  military  dignity  of  the  realm 
— was  given  to  Du  Guesclin,  but  only  on  condition 
that  he  would  avoid  pitched  battles,  and  merely  harass 
the  English  and  take  their  castles.    This  policy  was 


32 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


so  strictly  followed,  that  the  Duke  of  Lancaster  was 
allowed  to  march  from  Brittany  to  Gascony  without 
meeting  an  enemy  in  the  field;  and  when  King 
Edward  III.  made  his  sixth  and  last  invasion,  nearly 
to  the  walls  of  Paris,  he  was  only  turned  back  by 
famine,  and  by  a  tremendous  thunderstorm,  which 
made  him  believe  that  Heaven  was  against  him. 
Du  Guesclin  died  while  besieging  a  castle,  and  such 
was  his  fame  that  the  English  captain  would  place 
the  keys  in  no  hand  but  that  of  his  corpse.  The 
Constable's  sword  was  given  to  Oliver  de  Clisson,  also  a 
Breton,  and  called  the  "  Butcher,"  because  he  gave 
no  quarter  to  the  English  in  revenge  for  the  death 
of  his  brother.  The  Bretons  were,  almost  to  a  man, 
of  the  French  party,  having  been  offended  by  the 
insolence  and  oppression  of  the  English ;  and  John 
de  Montfort,  after  clinging  to  the  King  of  England 
as  long  as  possible,  was  forced  to  make  his  peace  at 
length  with  Charles.  Charles  V.  had  nearly  regained 
all  that  had  been  lost,  when,  in  1380  his  death  left 
the  kingdom  to  his  son. 

6.  House  of  Burgundy.— C//^r/<f^  VL  was  a 
boy  of  nine  years  old,  motherless,  and  beset  with  am- 
bitious uncles.  These  uncles  were  Louis,  Duke  of 
Anjou,  to  whom  Queen  Joanna,  the  last  of  the  earlier 
Angevin  line  in  Naples,  bequeathed  her  rights ;  John, 
Duke  of  Berry,  a  weak  time-server ;  and  Philip,  the 


II.] 


HOUSE  OF  BURGUNDY, 


33 


ablest  and  most  honest  of  the  three.  His  grandmother 
Joan,  the  wife  of  Philip  VI.,  had  been  heiress  of  the 
duchy  and  county  of  Burgundy,  and  these  now  became 
his  inheritance,  giving  him  the  richest  part  of  France. 
By  still  better  fortune  he  had  married  Margaret,  the 
only  child  of  Louis,  Count  of  Flanders.  Flanders 
contained  the  great  cloth-manufacturing  towns  of 
Europe — Ghent,  Bruges,  Ypres,  etc.,  all  wealthy  and 
independent,  and  much  inclined  to  close  alliance 
with  England,  whence  they  obtained  their  wool,  while 
their  counts  were  equally  devoted  to  France.  Just 
as  Count  Louis  II.  had,  for  his  lawless  rapacity, 
been  driven  out  of  Ghent  by  Jacob  van  Arteveldt, 
so  his  son,  Louis  III.,  was  expelled  by  Philip  van 
Arteveldt,  son  to  Jacob.  Charles  had  been  disgusted 
by  Louis's  coarse  violence,  and  would  not  help  him  ; 
but  after  the  old  king's  death,  Philip  of  Burgundy 
used  his  influence  in  the  council  to  conduct  the  whole 
power  of  France  to  Flanders,  where  Arteveldt  was 
defeated  and  trodden  to  death  in  the  battle  of  Ros- 
becque,  in  1382.  On  the  count's  death,  Philip  suc- 
ceeded him  as  Count  of  Flanders  in  right  of  his  wife ; 
and  thus  was  laid  the  foundation  of  the  powerful  and 
wealthy  house  of  Burgundy,  which  for  four  genera- 
tions almost  overshadowed  the  crown  of  France. 

7.  Insanity  of  Charles  VI. — The  Constable, 
Clisson,  was  much  hated  bv  the,  Duke  of  Brittany, 


34 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


and  an  attack  which  was  made  on  him  in  the  streets 
of  Paris  was  clearly  traced  to  Montfort.  The  young 
king,  who  was  much  attached  to  Chsson,  set  forth 
to  exact  punishment.  On  his  way,  a  madman  rushed 
out  of  a  forest  and  called  out,  King,  you  are 
betrayed  !  "  Charles  was  much  frightened,  and  further 
seems  to  have  had  a  sunstroke,  for  he  at  once  became 
insane.  He  recovered  for  a  time  ;  but  at  Christmas, 
while  he  and  five  others  were  dancing,  disguised  as 
wild  men,  their  garments  of  pitched  flax  caught  fire. 
Four  were  burnt,  and  the  shock  brought  back  the 
king's  madness.  He  became  subject  to  fits  of  insanity 
of  longer  or  shorter  duration,  and  in  their  intervals  he 
seems  to  have  been  almost  imbecile.  No  provision 
had  then  been  made  for  the  contingency  of  a  mad 
king.  The  condition  of  the  country  became  worse 
than  ever,  and  power  was  grasped  at  by  whoever 
could  obtain  it.  Of  the  king's  three  uncles,  the  Duke 
of  Anjou  and  his  sons  were  generally  engrossed  by  a 
vam  struggle  to  obtain  Naples ;  the  Duke  of  Berry 
was  dull  and  weak;  and  the  chief  struggle  for  influence 
was  between  Philip  of  Burgundy  and  his  son,  John 
the  Fearless,  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  the 
king's  wife,  Isabel  of  Bavaria,  and  his  brother  Louis, 
Duke  of  Orleans,  who  was  suspected  of  being  her 
iover ;  while  the  unhappy  king  and  his  little  children 
were  left  in  a  wretched  state,  often  scarcely  provided 
with  clothes  or  food.  * 


Ti.]        BURGUNDIANS  AND  ARMAGNACS,  35 

8.  Burgundians  and  Armagnacs.— Matters 
grew  worse  after  the  death  of  Duke  PhiHp  in  1404; 
and  in  1407,  just  after  a  seeming  reconciliation,  the 
Duke  of  Orleans  was  murdered  in  the  streets  of  Paris 
by  servants  of  John  the  Fearless.  Louis  of  Orleans  had 
been  a  vain,  foolish  man,  heedless  of  all  save  his  own 
pleasure,  but  his  death  increased  the  misery  of  France 
through  the  long  and  deadly  struggle  for  vengeance 
that  followed.  The  king  was  helpless,  and  the  children 
of  the  Duke  of  Orleans  were  young;  but  their  cause 
was  taken  up  by  a  Gascon  nobk,  Bernard,  Count  of 
Armagnac,  whose  name  the  party  took.  The  Duke 
of  Burgundy  was  always  popular  in  Paris,  where  the 
people,  led  by  the  Guild  of  Butchers,  were  so  devoted 
to  him  that  he  ventured  to  have  a  sermon  preached  at 
the  university,  justifying  the  murder.  There  was  again 
a  feeble  attempt  at  reform  made  by  the  burghers ;  but, 
as  before,  the  more  violent  and  lawless  were  guilty  of 
such  excesses  that  the  opposite  party  were  called  in 
to  put  them  down.  The  Armagnacs  were  admitted 
into  Paris,  and  took  a  terrible  vengeance  on  the 
Butchers  and  on  all  adherents  of  Burgundy,  in  the 
name  of  the  Dauphin  Louis,  the  king's  eldest  son, 
a  weak,  dissipated  youth,  who  was  entirely  led  by  the 
Count  of  Armagnac. 

9.  Invasion  of  Henry  V. — All  this  time  the 

war  with  England  had  smouldered  on,  only  broken  by 
13* 


36 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


brief  truces  ;  and  when  France  was  in  this  wretched 
state  Henry  V.  renewed  the  claim  of  Edward  HI.,  and 
in  141 5  landed  before  Harfleur.  After  delaying  till 
he  had  taken  the  city,  the  dauphin  called  together  the 
whole  nobility  of  the  kingdom,  and  advanced  against 
Henry,  who,  like  Edward  IH.,  had  been  obliged  to 
leave  Normandy  and  march  towards  Calais  in  search 
of  supplies.  The  armies  met  at  Agincourt,  where, 
though  the  P>ench  greatly  outnumbered  the  English, 
the  skill  of  Henry  and  the  folly  and  confusion  of  the 
dauphin's  army  led  to  a  total  defeat,  and  the  cap- 
tivity of  half  the  chief  men  in  France  of  the  Armagnac 
party — among  them  the  young  Duke  of  Orleans.  It 
was  Henry  V.'s  policy  to  treat  France,  not  as  a 
conquest,  but  as  an  inheritance ;  and  he  therefore 
refused  to  let  these  captives  be  ransomed  till  he 
should  have  reduced  the  country  to  obedience,  while 
he  treated  all  the  places  that  submitted  to  him  with 
great  kindness.  The  Duke  of  Burgundy  held  aloof 
from  the  contest,  and  the  Armagnacs,  who  ruled  in 
Paris,  were  too  weak  or  too  careless  to  send  aid 
to  Rouen,  which  was  taken  by  Henry  after  a 
long  siege.  The  Dauphin  Louis  died  in  141 7;  his 
next  brother,  John,  who  was  more  inclined  to  Bur- 
gundy,  did  not  survive  him  a  year;  and  the  third 
brother,  Charles,  a  mere  boy,  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
Armagnacs.  In  141 8  their  reckless  misuse  of  power 
provoked  the  citizens  of  Paris  into  letting  in  the  Bur- 


TREATY  OF  TROYES. 


37 


gundians,  when  an  unspeakably,  horrible  massacre 
took  place.  Bernard  of  Armagnac  himself  was  killed ; 
his  naked  corpse,  scored  with  his  red  cross,  was 
dragged  about  the  streets;  and  men,  women,  and  even 
infants  of  his  party  were  slaughtered  pitilessly.  Tan- 
neguy  Duchatel,  one  of  his  partisans,  carried  off  the 
dauphin;  but  the  queen,  weary  of  Armagnac  inso- 
lence, had  joined  the  Burgundian  party. 

10.  Treaty  of  Troyes. — Meanwhile  Henry  V. 
continued  to  advance,  and  John  of  Burgundy  felt 
the  need  of  joining  the  whole  strength  of  France 
against  him,  and  made  overtures  to  the  dauphin. 
Duchatel,  either  fearing  to  be  overshadowed  by  his 
power,  or  else  in  revenge  for  Orleans  and  Armagnac, 
no  sooner  saw  that  a  reconciliation  was  likely  to 
take  place,  than  he  murdered  John  the  Fearless 
before  the  dauphin's  eyes,  at  a  conference  on  the 
bridge  of  Montereau-sur-Yonne  (141 9).  John's  wound 
was  said  to  be  the  hole  which  let  the  English  into 
France,  His  son  Philip,  the  new  Duke  of  Bur- 
gundy, viewing  the  dauphin  as  guilty  of  his  death, 
went  over  with  all  his  forces  to  Henry  V.,  taking 
with  him  the  queen  and  the  poor  helpless  king. 
At  the  treaty  of  Troyes,  in  1420,  Henry  was  de- 
clared regent,  and  heir  of  the  kingdom,  at  the 
same  time  as  he  received  the  hand  of  Catherine, 
daughter  of  Charles  VI.    This  gave  him  Paris  and 


38 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


all  the  chief  cities  in  northern  France  j  but  the 
Armagnacs  held  the  south,  with  the  Dauphin  Charles 
at  their  head.  Charles  was  declared  an  outlaw  by 
his  father's  court,  but  he  was  in  truth  the  leader  of 
what  had  become  the  national  and  patriotic  cause. 
During  this  time,  after  a  long  struggle  and  schism, 
the  Pope  again  returned  to  Rome. 

II.  The  Maid  of  Orleans.— When  Henry  V. 
died  in  1422,  and  the  unhappy  Charles  a  few  weeks 
later,  the  infant  Henry  VI.  was  proclaimed  King  of 
France  as  well  as  of  England,  at  both  Paris  and  Lon- 
don, while  Charles  VII,  was  only  proclaimed  at  Bourges, 
and  a  few  other  places  in  the  south.  Charles  was  of 
a  slow,  sluggish  nature,  and  the  men  around  him 
were  selfish  and  pleasure-loving  intriguers,  who  kept 
aloof  all  the  bolder  spirits  from  him.  The  brother  of 
Henry  V.,  John,  Duke  of  Bedford,  ruled  all  the  country 
north  of  the  Loire,  with  Rouen  as  his  head-quarters. 
For  seven  years  little  was  done ;  but  in  1429  he 
caused  Orleans  to  be  besieged.  The  city  held  out 
bravely,  all  France  looked  on  anxiously,  and  a  young 
peasant  girl,  named  Joan  d'Arc,  believed  herself  called 
by  voices  from  the  saints  to  rescue  the  city,  and  lead 
the  king  to  his  coronation  at  Rheims.  With  difficulty 
she  obtained  a  hearing  of  the  king,  and  was  allowed 
to  proceed  to  Orleans.  Leading  the  army  with  a 
consecrated  sword,  which  she  never  stained  with 


n.] 


THE  MAID  OF  ORLEANS. 


39 


blood,  she  filled  the  French  with  confidence,  the  Eng- 
lish with  fear  as  of  a  witch,  and  thus  she  gained  the 
day  wherever  she  appeared.  Orleans  was  saved,  and 
she  then  conducted  Charles  VII.  to  Rheims,  and  stood 
beside  his  throne  when  he  was  crowned.  Then  she 
said  her  work  was  done,  and  would  have  returned 
home ;  but,  though  the  wretched  king  and  his  court 
never  appreciated  her,  they  thought  her  useful  with 
the  soldiers,  and  would  not  let  her  leave  them.  She 
had  lost  her  heart  and  hope,  and  the  men  began  to 
be  angered  at  her  for  putting  down  all  vice  and  foul 
language.  The  captains  were  envious  of  her ;  and  at 
last,  when  she  had  led  a  sally  out  of  the  besieged 
town  of  Compiegne,  the  gates  were  shut,  and  she  was 
made  prisoner  by  a  Burgundian,  John  of  Luxembourg. 
The  Burgundians  hated  her  even  more  than  the  Eng- 
lish. The  inquisitor  was  of  their  party,  and  a  court 
was  held  at  Rouen,  which  condemned  her  to  die  as  a 
witch.  Bedford  consented,  but  left  the  city  before  the 
execution.  Her  own  king  made  no  effort  to  save  her, 
though,  many  years  later,  he  caused  enquiries  to  be 
made,  established  her  innocence,  ennobled  her  family, 
and  freed  her  village  from  taxation. 

12.  Recovery  of  France  (1434 — 1450). — But 
though  Joan  was  gone,  her  work  lasted.  The  Con- 
stable, Artur  of  Richmond,  the  Count  of  Dunois, 
and  other  brave  leaders,  continued  to  attack  the 


40 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


English.  After  seventeen  years'  vengeance  for  his 
father's  death,  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  made  his  peace 
with  Charles  by  a  treaty  at  Arras,  on  condition  of 
paying  no  more  homage,  in  1434.  Bedford  died 
soon  after,  and  there  were  nothing  but  disputes 
among  the  English.  Paris  opened  its  gates  to  the 
king,  and  Charles,  almost  in  spite  of  himself,  was 
restored.  An  able  merchant,  named  Jacques  Coeur, 
lent  him  money  which  equipped  his  men  for  the 
recovery  of  Normandy,  and  he  himself,  wakmg  into 
activity,  took  Rouen  and  the  other  cities  on  the  coast. 

13.  Conquest  of  Aquitaine  (1450). — By  these 
successes  Charles  had  recovered  all,  save  Calais, 
that  Henry  V.  or  Edward  III.  had  taken  from 
France.  But  he  was  now  able  to  do  more.  The 
one  province  of  the  south  which  the  French  kings 
had  never  been  able  to  win  was  Guienne,  the  duchy 
on  the  river  Garonne.  Guienne  had  been  a  part  of 
Eleanor's  inheritance,  and  passed  through  her  to  the 
English  kings;  but  though  they  had  lost  all  else, 
the  hatred  of  its  inhabitants  to  the  French  enabled 
them  to  retain  this,  and  Guienne  had  never  yet 
passed  under  French  rule.  It  was  wrested,  how- 
ever, from  Eleanor's  descendants  in  this  flood-tide  of 
conquest.  Bordeaux  held  out  as  long  as  it  could,  but 
Henry  VI.  could  send  no  aid,  and  it  was  forced  to 
yield.     Tv/o  years  later,  brave  old  Lord  Talbot  led 


II.] 


THE  STANDING  ARMY, 


41 


5000  men  to  recover  the  duchy,  and  was  gladly 
welcomed  but  he  was  slain  in  the  battle  of  Castillon, 
fighting  like  a  lion.  His  two  sons  fell  beside  him,  and 
his  army  was  broken.  Bordeaux  again  surrendered, 
and  the  French  kings  at  last  found  themselves  master 
of  the  great  fief  of  the  south.  Calais  was,  at  the 
close  of  the  great  Hundred  Years'  War,  the  only 
possession  left  to  England  south  of  the  Channel. 

14.  The  Standing  Army  (1452). — As  at  the  end 
of  the  first  act  in  the  Hundred  Years'  War,  the  great 
difficulty  in  time  of  peace  was  the  presence  of  the 
bands  of  free  companions,  or  mercenary  soldiers,  who, 
when  war  and  plunder  failed  them,  lived  by  violence 
and  robbery  of  the  peasants.  Charles  VII.,  who  had 
awakened  into  vigour,  thereupon  took  into  regular  pay 
all  who  would  submit  to  discipline,  and  the  rest  were 
led  off  on  two  futile  expeditions  into  Switzerland  and 
Germany,  and  there  left  to  their  fate.  The  princes 
and  nobles  were  at  first  so  much  disgusted  at  the 
regulations  which  bound  the  soldiery  to  respect  the 
magistracy,  that  they  raised  a  rebellion,  which  was 
fostered  by  the  Dauphin  Louis,  who  was  ready  to 
do  anything  that  could  annoy  his  father.  But  he 
was  soon  detached  from  them ;  the  Duke  of  Bur- 
gundy would  not  assist  them,  and  the  league  fell  to 
pieces.    Charles  VII.  by  thus  retaining  companies  of 

hired  troops  in  his  pay  laid  the  foundation  of  the 
5 


42 


FRANCE. 


[chap.  II. 


first  standing  army  in  Europe,  and  enabled  the  mon- 
archy to  tread  down  the  feudal  force  of  the  nobles. 
His  government  was  firm  and  wise ;  and  with  his 
reign  began  better  times  for  France.  But  it  was 
long  before  it  recovered  from  the  miseries  of  the 
long  strife.  The  war  had  kept  back  much  of  pro- 
gress. There  had  been  grievous  havoc  of  buildings 
in  the  north  and  centre  of  France ;  much  lawlessness 
and  cruelty  prevailed;  and  yet  there  was  a  certain 
advance  in  learning,  and  much  love  of  romance  and 
the  theory  of  chivalry.  Pages  of  noble  birth  were 
bred  up  in  castles  to  be  first  squires  and  then 
knights.  There  was  immense  formality  and  state- 
liness,  the  order  of  precedence  was  most  minute, 
and  pomp  and  display  were  wonderful.  Strange 
alternations  took  place.  One  month  the  streets  of 
Paris  would  be  a  scene  of  horrible  famine,  where 
hungry  dogs,  and  even  wolves,  put  an  end  to  the 
miseries  of  starving,  homeless  children  of  slaughtered 
parents ;  another,  the  people  would  be  gazing  at  royal 
banquets,  lasting  a  whole  day,  with  allegorical  ^^subtle- 
ties "  of  jelly  on  the  table,  and  pageants  coming 
between  the  courses,  where  all  the  Virtues  harangued 
in  turn,  or  where  knights  delivered  maidens  from 
giants  and  "  salvage  men.''  In  the  south  there  was 
less  misery  and  more  progress.  Jacques  Coeur's  house 
at  Bourges  is  still  a  marvel  of  household  architecture  ; 
and  Rend,  Duke  of  Anjou  and  Count  of  Provence, 
was  an  excellent  painter  on  glass,  and  also  a  poet. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  BURGUNDY. 

I.  Power  of  Burgundy.  —  All  the  troubles  of 
France,  for  the  last  80  years,  had  gone  to  increase 
the  strength  of  the  Dukes  of  Burgundy.  The  county 
and  duchy,  of  which  Dijon  was  the  capital,  lay  in 
the  most  fertile  district  of  France,  and  had,  as  we 
have  seen,  been  conferred  on  Phihp  the  Bold.  His 
marriage  had  given  to  him  Flanders,  with  a  gallant 
nobility,  and  with  the  chief  manufacturing  cities  of 
Northern  Europe.  Philip's  son,  John  the  Fearless, 
had  married  a  lady  who  ultimately  brought  into  the 
family  the  great  imperial  counties  of  Holland  and 
Zealand ;  and  her  son,  Duke  Phihp  the  Good,  by 
purchase  or  inheritance,  obtained  possession  of  all 
the  adjoining  little  fiefs  forming  the  country  called 
the  Netherlands,  some  belonging  to  the  Empire, 
some  to  France.  Philip  had  turned  the  scale  in 
the  struggle  between  England  and  France,  and,  as 
his  reward,  had  won  the  cities  on  the  Somme.  He 


44 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


had  thus  become  the  richest  and  most  powerful 
prince  in  Europe,  and  seemed  on  the  point  of  found- 
ing a  middle  state  lying  between  France  and  Ger- 
many, his  weak  point  being  that  the  imperial  fiefs  in 
Lorraine  and  Elsass  lay  between  his  dukedom  of 
Burgundy  and  his  counties  in  the  Netherlands.  No 
European  court  equalled  in  splendour  that  of  Philip. 
The  great  cities  of  Ghent,  Bruges,  Antw^erp,  and 
the  rest,  though  full  of  fierce  and  resolute  men,  paid 
him  dues  enough  to  make  him  the  richest  of  princes, 
and  the  Flemish  knights  were  among  the  boldest  in 
Europe.  All  the  arts  of  life,  above  all  painting  and 
domestic  architecture,  flourished  at  Brussels ;  and  no- 
where were  troops  so  well  equipped,  burghers  more 
prosperous,  learning  more  widespread,  than  in  his 
domains.  Here,  too,  were  the  most  ceremonious 
courtesy,  the  most  splendid  banquets,  and  the  most 
wonderful  display  of  jewels,  plate,  and  cloth-of-gold. 
Charles  VII.,  a  clever  though  a  cold-hearted,  indo- 
lent man,  let  Philip  alone,  already  seeing  how  the 
game  would  go  for  the  future ;  for  when  the  dauphin 
had  quarrelled  with  the  reigning  favourite,  and  was 
kindly  received  on  his  flight  to  Burgundy,  the  old 
king  sneered,  saying  that  the  duke  was  fostering  the 
fox  who  would  steal  his  chickens. 

2.  Louis  XL's  Policy. — Louis  XL  succeeded 
his  father  Charles  in  1461.    He  was  a  man  of  great 


III.] 


LOUIS  XL'S  POLICY. 


4S 


skill  and  craft,  with  an  iron  will,  and  subtle  though 
pitiless  nature,  who  knew  in  what  the  greatness  of  a 
king  consisted,  and  worked  out  his  ends  mercilessly 
and  unscrupulously.  The  old  feudal  dukes  and  counts 
had  all  passed  away,  except  the  Duke  of  Brittany;  but 
the  Dukes  of  Orleans,  Burgundy,  and  Anjou  held 
princely  appanages,  and  there  was  a  turbulent  nobility 
who  had  grown  up  during  the  wars,  foreign  and  civil, 
and  been  encouraged  by  the  favouritism  of  Charles  VL 
AH  these,  feeling  that  Louis  was  their  natural  foe, 
united  against  him  in  what  was  called  the  "League  of 
the  Public  Good,"  with  his  own  brother,  the  Duke  of 
Berry,  and  Count  Charles  of  Charolais,  who  was  known 
as  Charles  the  Bold,  the  son  of  Duke  Philip  of  Bur- 
gundy, at  their  head.  Louis  was  actually  defeated  by 
Charles  of  Charolais  in  the  battle  of  Montlhery;  but 
he  contrived  so  cleverly  to  break  up  the  league,  by 
promises  to  each  member  and  by  sowing  dissension 
among  them,  that  he  ended  by  becoming  more  power- 
ful than  before. 

3.  Charles  the  Bold.— On  the  death  of  Philip 
the  Good,  in  1467,  Charles  the  Bold  succeeded  to 
the  duchy  of  Burgundy.  He  pursued  more  ardently 
the  plan  of  forming  a  new  kingdom  of  Burgundy, 
and  had  even  hopes  of  being  chosen  Emperor.  First, 
however,  he  had  to  consolidate  his  dominions,  by 
making  himself  master  of  the  countries  which  parted 


46 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


Burgundy  from  the  Netherlands.  With  this  view 
he  obtained  Elsass  in  pledge  from  its  owner,  a 
needy  son  of  the  house  of  Austria,  who  was  never 
likely  to  redeem  it.  Lorraine  had  been  inherited 
by  Yolande,  the  wife  of  Rene,  Duke  of  Anjou  and 
titular  King  of  Sicily,  and  had  passed  from  her  to 
her  daughter,  who  had  married  the  nearest  heir  in 
the  male  line,  the  Count  of  Vaudemont ;  but  Charles 
the  Bold  unjustly  seized  the  dukedom,  driving  out 
the  lawful  heir,  Rene  de  Vaudemont,  son  of  this 
marriage.  Louis,  meantime,  was  on  the  watch  for 
every  error  of  Charles,  and  constantly  sowing  dangers 
in  his  path.  Sometimes  his  mines  exploded  too  soon, 
as  when  he  had  actually  put  himself  into  Charles's 
power  by  visiting  him  at  Peronne  at  the  very  moment 
when  his  emissaries  had  encouraged  the  city  of  Liege 
to  rise  in  revolt  against  their  bishop,  an  ally  of  the 
duke;  and  he  only  bought  his  freedom  by  profuse 
promises,  and  by  aiding  Charles  in  a  most  savage  de- 
struction of  Liege.  But  after  this  his  caution  prevailed. 
He  gave  secret  support  to  the  adherents  of  Rene  de 
Vaudemont,  and  intrigued  with  the  Swiss,  who  were 
often  at  issue  with  the  Burgundian  baililfs  and  soldiery 
in  Elsass — greedy,  reckless  men,  from  whom  the  men 
of  Elsass  revolted  in  favour  of  their  former  Austrian 
lord.  Meantime  Edward  IV.  of  England,  Charles's 
brother-in-law,  had  planned  with  him  an  invasion  of 
France  and  division  of  the  kingdom,  and  in  1475. 


III.] 


CHARLES  THE  BOLD. 


47 


actually  crossed  the  sea  with  a  splendid  host ;  but 
while  Charles  was  prevented  from  joining  him  by  the 
siege  of  Neuss,  a  city  in  alliance  with  Sigismund  of 
Austria,  Louis  met  Edward  on  the  bridge  of  Pecquigny, 
and  by  cajolery,  bribery,  and  accusations  of  Charles, 
contrived  to  persuade  him  to  carry  home  his  army 
without  striking  a  blow.  That  meeting  was  a  curious 
one.  A  wooden  barrier,  like  a  wild  beast's  cage,  was 
erected  in  the  middle  of  the  bridge,  through  which 
the  two  kings  kissed  one  another.  Edward  was  the 
tallest  and  handsomest  man  present,  and  splendidly 
attired.  Louis  was '  small  and  mean-looking,  and  clad 
in  an  old  blue  suit,  with  a  hat  decorated  with  little 
leaden  images  of  the  saints,  but  his  smooth  tongue 
quite  overcame  the  duller  intellect  of  Edward  j  and  in 
the  mean  time  the  English  soldiers  were  feasted  and 
allowed  their  full  swing,  the  French  being  strictly 
watched  to  prevent  all  quarrels.  So  skilfully  did 
Louis  manage,  that  Edward  consented  to  make  peace 
and  return  home. 

4.  The  Fall  of  Charles  the  Bold  (1477).— 
Charles  had  become  entangled  in  many  difficulties. 
He  was  a  harsh,  stern  man,  much  disliked  \  and  his 
governors  in  Elsass  were  fierce,  violent  men,  who 
used  every  pretext  for  preying  upon  travellers.  The 
Governor  of  Breisach,  Hagenbach,  had  been  put  to 
death  in  a  popular  rising,  aided  by  the  Swiss  of  Berne, 


48 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


in  1474;  and  the  men  of  Elsass  themselves  raised 
part  of  the  sum  for  which  the  country  had  been 
pledged,  and  revolted  against  Charles.  The  Swiss 
were  incited  by  Louis  to  join  them;  Rene  of  Lorraine 
made  common  cause  with  them.  In  two  great  battles, 
Granson  and  Morat,  Charles  and  all  his  chivalry 
were  beaten  by  the  Swiss  pikemen  \  but  he  pushed  on 
the  war.  Nancy,  the  chief  city  of  Lorraine,  had  risen 
against  him,  and  he  besieged  it.  On  the  night  of  the 
5th  of  January,  1477,  Rene  led  the  Swiss  to  reHeve 
the  town  by  falling  in  early  morning  on  the  besiegers' 
camp.  There  was  a  terrible  fight;  the  Burgundians 
were  routed,  and  after  long  search  the  corpse  of 
Duke  Charles  was  found  in  a  frozen  pool,  stripped, 
plundered,  and  covered  with  blood.  He  was  the 
last  of  the  male  line  of  Burgundy,  and  its  great  pos- 
sessions broke  up  with  his  death.  His  only  child, 
Marie,  did  not  inherit  the  French  dukedom  nor  the 
county,  though  most  of  the  fiefs  in  the  Low  Countries, 
which  could  descend  to  the  female  line,  were  her 
undisputed  portion.  Louis  tried,  by  stirring  up  her 
subjects,  to  force  her  into  a  marriage  with  his  son 
Charles;  but  she  threw  herself  on  the  protection  of 
the  house  of  Austria,  and  marrying  Maximilian,  son 
of  the  Emperor  Frederick  III.,  carried  her  border 
lands  to  swell  the  power  of  his  family. 

5.    Louis's   Home   Government.  —  Louis's 


III.]  LOUIS'S  HOME  GOVERNMENT.  49 


system  of  repression  of  the  nobles  went  on  all  this 
time.  His  counsellors  were  of  low  birth  (Oliver  le 
Daim,  his  barber,  was  the  man  he  most  trusted),  his 
habits  frugal,  his  manners  reserved  and  ironical ;  he 
was  dreaded,  hated,  and  distrusted,  and  he  became  con- 
stantly more  bitter,  suspicious,  and  merciless.  Those 
who  fell  under  his  displeasure  were  imprisoned  in  iron 
cages,  or  put  to  death;  and  the  more  turbulent  fami- 
lies, such  as  the  house  of  Armagnac,  were  treated  with 
frightful  severity.  But  his  was  not  wanton  violence. 
He  acted  on  a  regular  system  of  depressing  the  lawless 
nobility  and  increasing  the  royal  authority,  by  bringing 
the  power  of  the  cities  forward,  by  trusting  for  protec- 
tion to  the  standing  army,  chiefly  of  hired  Scots,  Swiss, 
and  Italians,  and  by  saving  money.  By  this  means  he 
was  able  to  purchase  the  counties  of  Roussillon  and 
Perpignan  from  the  King  of  Aragon,  thus  making 
the  Pyrenees  his  frontier,  and  on  several  occa- 
sions he  made  his  treasury  fight  his  battles  instead  of 
the  swords  of  his  knights.  He  lived  in  the  castle  of 
Plessis  les  Tours,  guarded  by  the  utmost  art  of  fortifi- 
cation, and  filled  with  hired  Scottish  archers  of  his 
guard,  whom  he  preferred  as  defenders  to  his  own 
nobles.  He  was  exceedingly  unpopular  Avith  his 
nobles ;  but  the  statesman  and  historian,  Philip  de 
Comines,  who  had  gone  over  to  him  from  Charles  of 
Burgundy,  viewed  him  as  the  best  and  ablest  of  kings. 
He  did  much  to  promote  trade  and  manufacture,  im- 


50 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


proved  the  cities,  fostered  the  university,  and  was 
in  truth  the  first  king  since  Philip  Augustus  who  had 
any  real  sense  of  statesmanship.  But  though  the 
burghers  throve  under  him,  and  the  lawless  nobles 
were  depressed,  the  state  of  the  peasants  was  not  im- 
proved ;  feudal  rights  pressed  heavily  on  them,  and 
they  were  little  better  than  savages,  ground  down  by 
burthens  imposed  by  their  lords. 

6.  Provence  and  Brittany. — Louis  had  added 
much  to  the  French  monarchy.  He  had  won  back 
Artois;  he  had  seized  the  duchy  and  county  of 
Burgundy ;  he  had  bought  Roussillon.  His  last 
acquisition  was  the  county  of  Provence.  The  second 
Angevin  family,  beginning  with  Louis,  the  son  ot 
King  John,  had  never  succeeded  in  gaining  a  footing 
in  Naples,  though  they  bore  the  royal  title.  They 
held,  however,  the  imperial  fief  of  Provence,  and 
Louis  XL,  whose  mother  had  been  of  this  family, 
obtained  from  her  two  brothers,  Rene  and  Charles, 
that  Provence  should  be  bequeathed  to  him  instead 
of  passing  to  Rene's  grandson,  the  Duke  of  Lorraine. 
The  Kings  of  France  were  thenceforth  Counts  of  Pro- 
vence ;  and  though  the  county  was  not  viewed  as  part 
of  the  kingdom,  it  was  practically  one  with  it.  A  yet 
greater  acquisition  was  made  soon  after  Louis's  death 
in  1483.  The  great  Celtic  duchy  of  Brittany  fell  to  a 
female,  Anne  of  Brittany,  and  the  address  of  Louis's 


III.] 


PROVENCE  AND  BRITTANY. 


51 


daughter,  the  Lady  of  Beaujeu,  who  was  regent  of  the 
realm,  prevailed  to  secure  the  hand  of  the  heiress 
for  her  brother,  Charles  VIII.  Thus  the  crown 
of  France  had  by  purchase,  conquest,  or  inheritance, 
obtained  all  the  great  feudal  states  that  made  up 
the  country  between  the  English  Channel  and  the 
Pyrenees;  but  each  still  remained  a  separate  state, 
with  different  laws  and  customs,  and  a  separate  par- 
liament in  each  to  register  laws,  and  to  act  as  a  court 
of  justice. 
14* 


5^ 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  ITALIAN  WARS. 

I.  Campaign  of  Charles  VIII.  (1493). —From 
grasping  at  province  after  province  on  their  own 
border,  however,  the  French  kings  were  now  to  turn 
to  wider  dreams  of  conquest  abroad.  Together  with 
the  county  of  Provence,  Louis  XL  had  bought  from 
King  Rene  all  the  claims  of  the  house  of  Anjou. 
Among  these  was  included  a  claim  to  the  kingdom  of 
Naples.  Louis's  son,  Charles  VIII, ^  a  vain  and  shallow 
lad,  was  tempted  by  the  possession  of  large  treasures 
and  a  fine  army  to  listen  to  the  persuasions  of  an 
Italian  intriguer,  Ludovico  Sforza,  Duke  of  Milan,  and 
put  forward  these  pretensions,  thus  beginning  a  war 
which  lasted  nearly  as  long  as  the  Hundred  Years' 
War  with  England.  But  it  was  a  war  of  aggression 
instead  of  a  war  of  self-defence.  Charles  crossed  the 
Alps  in  1493,  marched  the  whole  length  of  Italy  with- 
out opposition,  and  was  crowned  at  Naples ;  while  its 
royal  family,  an  illegitimate  offshoot  from  the  Kings  of 


IV.] 


CAMPAIGN  OF  LOUIS  XII 


53 


Aragon,  fled  into  Sicily,  and  called  on  Spain  for  help. 
But  the  insolent  exactions  of  the  French  soldiery  caused 
the  people  to  rise  against  them;  and  when  Charles 
returned,  he  was  beset  at  Fornovo  by  a  great  league 
of  Italians,  over  whom  he  gained  a  complete  victory. 
Small  and  puny  though  he  was,  he  fought  like  a  lion, 
and  seemed  quite  inspired  by  the  ardour  of  combat. 
The  "  French  fury,"  la  fiiria  Frances became  a  pro- 
verb among  the  Italians.  Charles  neglected,  however, 
to  send  any  supplies  or  reinforcements  to  the  garrisons 
he  had  left  behind  him  in  Naples,  and  they  all  perished 
under  want,  sickness,  and  the  sword  of  the  Spaniards. 
He  was  meditating  another  expedition,  when  he 
struck  his  head  against  the  top  of  a  doorway,  and 
died  in  1498. 

V  ■ 

2.  Campaign  of  Louis  XII. — His  cousin, 
Louis  XIL,  married  his  widow,  and  thus  prevented 
Brittany  from  again  parting  from  the  crown.  Louis 
not  only  succeeded  to  the  Angevin  right  to  Naples, 
but  through  his  grandmother  he  viewed  himself  as 
heir  of  Milan.  She  was  Valentina  Visconti,  wife  to 
that  Duke  of  Orleans  who  had  been  murdered  by 
John  the  Fearless.  Louis  himself  never  advanced 
further  than  to  Milan,  whose  surrender  made  him 
master  of  Lombardy,  which  he  held  for  the  greater 
part  of  his  reign.  But  after  a  while  the  Spanish 
king,  Ferdinand,  agreed  with  him  to  throw  over 
6 


54 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


the  cause  of  the  unfortunate  royal  family  of  Naples, 
and  divide  that  kingdom  between  them.  Louis  XII. 
sent  a  brilliant  army  to  take  possession  of  his  share, 
but  the  bounds  of  each  portion  had  not  been  defined, 
and  the  French  and  Spanish  troops  began  a  war 
even  while  their  kings  were  still  treating  with  one 
another.  The  individual  French  knights  did  brilliant 
exploits,  for  indeed  it  was  the  time  of  the  chief 
blossom  of  fanciful  chivalry,  a  knight  of  Dauphine, 
named  Bayard,  called  the  Fearless  and  Stainless 
Knight,  and  honoured  by  friend  and  foe;  but  the 
Spaniards  were  under  Gonzalo  de  Cordova,  called 
the  Great  Captain,  and  after  the  battles  of  Cerignola 
and  the  Garigliano  drove  the  French  out  of  the  king- 
dom of  Naples,  though  the  war  continued  in  Lombardy. 

3.  The  Holy  League.  —  It  w^as  an  age  of 
leagues.  The  Italians,  hating  French  and  Spaniards 
both  alike,  were  continually  forming  combinations 
among  themselves  and  with  foreign  powers  against 
whichever  happened  to  be  the  strongest.  The 
chief  of  these  was  called  the  Holy  League,  because 
it  was  formed  by  Pope  Julius  II.,  who  drew  into 
it  Maximilian,  then  head  of  the  German  Empire, 
Ferdinand  of  Spain,  and  Henry  VIII.  of  England. 
The  French  troops  were  attacked  in  Milan  ;  and 
though  they  gained  the  battle  of  Ravenna  in  15 12, 
it  was  with  the  loss  of  their  general,  Gaston  de 


IV.] 


THE  HOLY  LEAGUE, 


55 


Foix,  Duke  of  Nemours,  whose  death  served  as  an 
excuse  to  Ferdinand  of  Spain  for  setting  up  a  claim 
to  the  kingdom  of  Navarre.  He  cunningly  per- 
suaded Henry  VI H.  to  aid  him  in  the  attack,  by 
holding  out  the  vain  idea  of  going  on  to  regain  Gas- 
cony;  and  while  one  troop  of  EngHsh  were  attacking 
Pampeluna,  Henry  himself  landed  at  Calais  and  took 
Tournay  and  Terouenne.  The  French  forces  were  at 
the  same  time  being  chased  out  of  Italy.  However, 
when  Pampeluna  had  been  taken,  and  the  French 
finally  driven  out  of  Lombardy,  the  Pope  and  king, 
who  had  gained  their  ends,  left  Henry  to  fight  his  own 
battles.  He  thus  was  induced  to  make  peace,  giving 
his  young  sister  Mary  as  second  wife  to  Louis;  but 
that  king  over-exerted  himself  at  the  banquets,  and 
died  six  weeks  after  the  marriage,  in  1515.  During 
this  reign  the  waste  of  blood  and  treasure  on  wars 
of  mere  ambition  was  frightful,  and  the  country  had 
been  heavily  taxed ;  but  a  brilliant  soldiery  had  been 
trained  up,  and  national  vanity  had  much  increased. 
The  king,  though  without  deserving  much  love,  was 
so  kindly  in  manner  that  he  was  a  favourite,  and  was 
called  the  Father  of  the  People.  His  first  wife, 
Anne  of  Brittany,  was  an  excellent  and  high-spirited 
woman,  who  kept  the  court  of  France  in  a  better 
state  than  ever  before  or  since. 

4.  Campaigns  of  Francis  I. — Louis  left  only 


56 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


two  daughters,  the  elder  of  whom,  Claude,  carried 
Brittany  to  his  male  heir,  Francis,  Count  of  Angou- 
leine  Anne  of  Brittany  had  been  much  averse  to 
the  match;  but  Louis  said  he  kept  his  mice  for  his 
own  cats,  and  gave  his  daughter  and  her  duchy  to 
Francis  as  soon  as  Anne  was  dead.  Fi'ancis  I.  was 
one  of  the  vainest,  falsest,  and  most  dashing  of 
Frenchmen.  In  fact,  he  was  an  exaggeration  in 
every  way  of  the  national  character,  and  thus  became 
a  national  hero,  much  overpraised.  He  at  once 
resolved  to  recover  Lombardy ;  and  after  crossing  the 
Alps  encountered  an  army  of  Swiss  troops,  who  had 
been  hired  to  defend  the  Milanese  duchy,  on  the  field 
of  Marignano.  Francis  had  to  fight  a  desperate  battle 
with  them;  after  which  he  caused  Bayard  to  dub 
him  knight,  though  French  kings  were  said  to  be 
born  knights.  In  gaining  the  victory  over  these 
mercenaries,  who  had  been  hitherto  deemed  in- 
vincible, he  opened  for  himself  a  way  into  Italy,  and 
had  all  Lombardy  at  his  feet.  The  Pope,  Leo  X., 
met  him  at  Bologna,  and  a  concordat  took  place,  by 
which  the  French  Church  became  more  entirely  sub- 
ject to  the  Pope,  while  in  return  all  patronage  was 
given  up  to  the  crown.  The  effects  were  soon  seen 
in  the  increased  corruption  of  the  clergy  and  people. 
Francis  brought  home  from  this  expedition  much  taste 
for  Italian  art  and  literature,  and  all  matters  of  ele- 
gance and  ornament  made  great  progress  from  this 


IV.] 


CHARLES  V, 


57 


time.  The  great  Italian  masters  worked  for  him  : 
Raphael  painted  some  of  his  most  beautiful  pictures 
for  him,  and  Leonardo  da  Vinci  came  to  his  court, 
and  there  died  in  his  arms.  His  palaces,  especially 
that  of  Blois,  were  exceedingly  beautiful,  in  the  new 
classic  style,  called  the  Renaissance.  Great  richness 
and  splendour  reigned  at  court,  and  set  off  his  pre- 
tensions to  romance  and  chivalry.  Learning  and 
scholarship,  especially  classical,  increased  much  ;  and 
the  king's  sister,  Margaret,  Queen  of  Navarre,  was  an 
excellent  and  highly  cultivated  woman,  but  even  her 
writings  prove  that  the  whole  tone  of  feeling  was 
terribly  coarse,  when  not  vicious.  • 

5,  Charles  V. — The  conquest  of  Lombardy  made 
France  the  greatest  power  in  Christendom ;  but  its 
king  was  soon  to  find  a  mighty  and  active  rival.  The 
old  hatred  between  France  and  Burgundy  again 
awoke.  Mary  of  Burgundy,  the  daughter  of  Charles 
the  Bold,  had  married  Maximilian,  Archduke  of 
Austria  and  King  of  the  Romans,  though  never 
actually  crowned  Emperor.  Their  son,  Philip,  mar- 
ried Juana,  the  daughter  of  Ferdinand,  and  heiress 
of  Spain,  who  lost  her  senses  from  grief  on  Philip's 
untimely  death;  and  thus  the  direct  heir  to  Spain, 
Austria,  and  the  Netherlands,  was  Charles,  her  eldest 
son.  On  the  death  of  Maximilian  in  15 18,  Francis 
proposed  himself  to  the  electors  as  Emperor,  but 


58 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


failed,  in  spite  of  bribery.  Charles  was  chosen,  and 
from  that  time  Francis  pursued  him  with  unceasing 
hatred.  The  claims  to  Milan  and  Naples  were  re- 
newed. Francis  sent  troops  to  occupy  Milan,  and 
was  following  them  himself ;  but  the  most  powerful  of 
all  his  nobles,  the  Duke  of  Bourbon,  Constable  ot 
France,  had  been  alienated  by  an  injustice  perpetrated 
on  him  in  favour  of  the  king's  mother,  and  deserted  to 
the  Spaniards,  offering  to  assist  them  and  the  English 
in  dividing  France,  while  he  reserved  for  himself  Pro- 
vence. His  desertion  hindered  Francis  from  sending 
support  to  the  troops  in  Milan,  who  were  forced  to 
retreat.  Bayard  was  shot  in  the  spine  while  defending 
the  rear-guard,  and  was  left  to  die  under  a  tree.  The 
utmost  honour  was  shown  him  by  the  Spaniards ;  but 
when  Bourbon  came  near  him,  he  bade  him  take 
pity,  not  on  one  who  was  dying  as  a  true  soldier,  but 
on  himself  as  a  traitor  to  king  and  country.  When 
the  French,  in  1525,  invaded  Lombardy,  Francis 
suffered  a  terrible  defeat  at  Pavia,  and  was  carried 
a  prisoner  to  Madrid,  where  he  remained  for  a  year, 
and  was  only  set  free  on  making  a  treaty  by  which 
he  was  to  give  up  all  claims  in  Italy  both  to  Naples 
and  Milan,  also  the  county  of  Burgundy  and  the 
suzerainty  of  those  Flemish  counties  which  had  been 
fiefs  of  the  French  crown,  as  well  as  to  surrrender  his 
two  sons  as  hostages  for  the  performance  of  the 
conditions. 


IV.]         JV^/^S  OF  FRANCIS  AND  CHARLES,  59 

6.  Wars  of  Francis  and  Charles. — All  the 
rest  of  the  king's  life  was  an  attempt  to  elude  or  break 
these  conditions,  against  which  he  had  protested  in 
his  prison,  but  when  there  was  no  Spaniard  present 
to  hear  him  do  so.  The  county  of  Burgundy  refused 
to  be  transferred;  and  the  Pope,  Clement  VII.,  hating 
the  Spanish  power  in  Italy,  contrived  a  fresh  league 
against  Charles,  in  which  Francis  joined,  but  was 
justly  rewarded  by  the  miserable  loss  of  another  army. 
His  mother  and  Charles's  aunt  met  at  Cambrai,  and 
concluded,  in  1529,  what  was  called  the  Ladies'  Peace, 
which  bore  as  hardly  on  France  as  the  peace  of 
Madrid,  excepting  that  Charles  gave  up  his  claim  to 
Burgundy.  Still  Francis's  plans  were  not  at  an  end. 
He  married  his  second  son,  Henry,  to  Catherine,  the 
only  legitimate  child  of  the  great  Florentine  house  of 
Medici,  and  tried  to  induce  Charles  to  set  up  an 
Italian  dukedom  of  Milan  for  the  young  pair;  but 
when  the  dauphin  died,  and  Henry  became  heir  of 
France,  Charles  would  not  give  him  any  footing  in 
Italy.  Francis  never  let  any  occasion  pass  of  harass- 
ing the  Emperor,  but  was  always  defeated.  Charles 
once  actually  invaded  Provence,  but  was  forced  to 
retreat  through  the  devastation  of  the  country  before 
him  by  Montmorengy,  afterwards  Constable  of  France. 
Francis,  by  loud  complaints,  and  by  talking  much  of 
his  honour,  contrived  to  make  the  world  fancy  him  the 
injured  man,  while  he  was  really  breaking  oaths  in  a 


Co 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


shameless  manner.  At  last,  in  1537,  the  king  and 
Emperor  met  at  Aigues  Mortes,  and  came  to  terms. 
Francis  married,  as  his  second  wife,  Charles's  sister 
Eleanor,  and  in  1540,  when  Charles  was  in  haste 
to  quell  a  revolt  in  the  Low  Countries,  he  asked  a 
safe  conduct  through  France,  and  was  splendidly 
entertained  at  Paris.  Yet  so  low  was  the  honour 
of  the  French,  that  Francis  scarcely  withstood  the 
temptation  of  extorting  the  duchy  of  Milan  from, 
him  when  in  his  power,  and  gave  so  many  broad  hints 
that  Charles  was  glad  to  be  past  the  frontier.  The 
war  was  soon  renewed.  Francis  set  up  a  claim  to 
Savoy,  as  the  key  of  Italy,  allied  himself  with  the 
Turks  and  Moors,  and  slaves  taken  by  them  on  the 
coasts  of  Italy  and  Spain  were  actually  brought  into 
Marseilles.  Nice  was  burnt;  but  the  citadel  held 
out,  and  as  Henry  VI 11.  had  allied  himself  with 
the  Emperor,  and  had  taken  Boulogne,  Francis  made 
a  final  peace  at  Crespy  in  1545.  He  died  only  two 
years  later,  in  1547. 

7.  Henry  II. — His  only  surviving  son,  Heiiry  II., 
followed  the  same  policy.  The  rise  of  Protestantism 
was  now  dividing  the  Empire  in  Germany ;  and  Henry 
took  advantage  of  the  strife  which  broke  out  between 
Charles  and  the  Protestant  princes  to  attack  the 
Emperor,  and  make  conquests  across  the  German 
border.    He  called  himself  Protector  of  the  Liberties 


IV.] 


HENRY  IL 


6i 


of  the  Germans,  and  leagued  himself  with  them, 
seizing  Metz,  which  the  Duke  of  Guise  bravely  de- 
fended when  the  Emperor  tried  to  retake  it.  This 
seizure  of  Metz  was  the  first  attempt  of  France  to 
make  conquests  in  Germany,  and  the  beginning  of  a 
contest  between  the  French  and  German  peoples 
which  has  gone  on  to  the  present  day.  After  the 
siege  a  five  years'  truce  was  made,  during  which 
Charles  V.  resigned  his  crowns.  His  brother  had 
been  already  elected  to  the  Empire,  but  his  son 
Philip  IL  became  King  of  Spain  and  Naples,  and  also 
inherited  the  Low  Countries.  The  Pope,  Paul  IV., 
who  was  a  Neapolitan,  and  hated  the  Spanish  rule, 
incited  Henry,  a  vain,  weak  man,  to  break  the  truce 
and  send  one  army  to  Italy,  under  the  Duke  of  Guise, 
while  another  attacked  the  frontier  of  the  Netherlands. 
Philip,  assisted  by  the  forces  of  his  wife,  Mary  1.  of 
England,  met  this  last  attack  with  an  army  com- 
manded by  the  Duke  of  Savoy.  It  advanced  into 
France,  and  besieged  St.  Quentin.  The  French, 
under  the  Constable  of  Montmorengy,  came  to 
relieve  the  city,  and  were  utterly  defeated,  the 
Constable  himself  being  made  prisoner.  His  nephew, 
the  Admiral  de  Coligny,  held  out  St.  Quentin  to  the 
last,  and  thus  gave  the  country  time  to  rally  against 
the  invader;  and  Guise  was  recalled  in  haste  from 
Italy.  He  soon  after  surprised  Calais,  which  was 
thus  restored  to  the  French^  after  having  been  held 


62 


FRANCE. 


[chap.  IV. 


by  the  English  for  two  hundred  years.  This  was  the 
only  conquest  the  French  retained  when  the  final 
peace  of  Cateau  Cambresis  was  made  in  the  year 
1558,  for  all  else  that  had  been  taken  on  either  side 
was  then  restored.  Savoy  was  given  back  to  its  duke, 
together  with  the  hand  of  Henry's  sister,  Margaret. 
During  a  tournament  held  in  honour  of  the  wedding, 
Henry  11.  was  mortally  injured  by  the  splinter  of  a 
lance,  in  1559;  and  in  the  home  troubles  that  fol- 
lowed, all  pretensions  to  Italian  power  were  dropped 
by  France,  after  wars  which  had  lasted  sixty-four  years. 


CHAPTER  V. 


THE  WARS  OF  RELIGION. 

I  The  Bourbons  and  Guises. — Henry  H.  had 
left  four  sons,  the  eldest  of  whom,  Francis  II.,  was 
only  fifteen  years  old;  and  the  country  was  divided 
by  two  great  factions — one  headed  by  the  Guise 
family,  an  offshoot  of  the  house  of  Lorraine ;  the  other 
by  the  Bourbons,  who,  being  descended  in  a  direct 
male  line  from  a  younger  son  of  St.  Louis,  were  the 
next  heirs  to  the  throne  in  case  the  house  of  Valois 
should  become  extinct.  Antony,  the  head  of  the 
Bourbon  family,  was  called  King  of  Navarre,  because 
of  his  marriage  with  Jeanne  d'Albret,  the  queen,  in  her 
own  right,  of  this  Pyrenean  kingdom,  which  was  in 
fact  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  Spaniards,  so  that 
her  only  actual  possession  consisted  of  the  little 
French  counties  of  Foix  and  Bearn.  Antony  himself 
was  dull  and  indolent,  but  his  wife  was  a  woman 
of  much  ability;  and  his  brother,  Louis,  Prince  of 
Conde,  was  full  of  spirit  and  fire,  and  little  inclined 


64 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


to  brook  the  ascendancy  which  the  Duke  of  Guise 
and  his  brothers  enjoyed  at  court,  partly  in  conse- 
quence of  his  exploit  at  Calais,  and  partly  from  being 
uncle  to  the  young  Queen  Mary  of  Scotland,  wife  of 
Francis  11.  The  Bourbons  likewise  headed  the  party 
among  the  nobles  who  hoped  to  profit  by  the  king's 
youth  to  recover  the  privileges  of  which  they  had  been 
gradually  deprived,  while  the  house  of  Guise  were 
ready  to  maintain  the  power  of  the  crown,  as  long  as 
that  meant  their  own  power. 

2.  The  Reformation. — The  enmity  of  these  two 
parties  was  much  increased  by  the  reaction  against  the 
prevalent  doctrines  and  the  corruptions  of  the  clergy. 
This  reaction  had  begun  in  the  reign  of  Francis  L, 
when  the  Bible  had  been  translated  into  French  by  two 
students  at  the  University  of  Paris,  and  the  king's  sister, 
Margaret,  Queen  of  Navarre,  had  encouraged  the  Re- 
formers. Francis  had  leagued  with  the  German  Pro- 
testants because  they  were  foes  to  the  Emperor,  while 
he  persecuted  the  like  opinions  at  home  to  satisfy  the 
Pope.  John  Calvin,  a  native  of  Picardy,  the  foremost 
French  reformer,  was  invited  to  the  free  city  of 
Geneva,  and  there  w^as  made  chief  pastor,  while  the 
scheme  of  theology  called  his  "  Institutes "  became 
the  text-book  of  the  Reformed  in  France,  Scotland, 
and  Holland.  His  doctrine  was  harsh  and  stern, 
aiming  at  the  utmost  simplicity  of  worship,  and  de- 


v.]  THE  REFORMATION,  65 

nouncing  the  existing  practices  so  fiercely,  that  the 
people,  who  held  themselves  to  have  been  wilfully 
led  astray  by  their  clergy,  committed  such  violence 
in  the  churches  that  the  Catholics  loudly  called  for 
punishment  on  them.  The  shameful  lives  of  many  of 
the  clergy  and  the  wickedness  of  the  Court  had  caused 
a  strong  reaction  against  them,  and  great  numbers  of 
both  nobles  and  burghers  became  Calvinists.  They 
termed  themselves  Sacramentarians  or  Reformers,  but 
their  nickname  w^as  Huguenots  ;  probably  from  the 
Swiss,  "  Eidgenossen,^'  ov  oath  comrades.  Henry  11. , 
like  his  father,  protected  German  Lutherans  and  per- 
secuted French  Calvinists ;  but  the  lawyers  of  the 
Parliament  of  Paris  interposed,  declaring  that  men 
ought  not  to  be  burnt  for  heresy  until  a  council  of 
the  Church  should  have  condemned  their  opinions, 
and  it  was  in  the  midst  of  this  dispute  that  Henry 
was  slain. 

3.  The  Conspiracy  of  Amboise. — The  Guise 
family  were  strong  Catholics;  the  Bourbons  were 
the  heads  of  the  Huguenot  party,  chiefly  from  policy  ; 
but  Admiral  Coligny  and  his  brother,  the  Sieur 
D'Andelot,  were  sincere  and  earnest  Reformers.  A 
third  party,  headed  by  the  old  Constable  De  Mont- 
morency, was  Catholic  in  faith,  but  not  unwilling  to 
join  with  the  Huguenots  in  pulling  down  the  Guises, 

and  asserting  the  power  of  the  nobility.     A  con- 
7 


66 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


spiracy  for  seizing  the  person  of  the  king  and  destroy- 
ing the  Guises  at  the  castle  of  Amboise  was  detected 
in  time  to  make  it  fruitless.  The  two  Bourbon  princes 
kept  in  the  background,  though  Conde  was  universally 
known  to  have  been  the  true  head  and  mover  in  it, 
and  he  was  actually  brought  to  trial.  The  discovery 
only  strengthened  the  hands  of  Guise. 

4.  Regency  of  Catherine  de'  Medici. — Even 
then,  however,  Francis  II.  was  dying,  and  his  brother, 
Cha7'les  IX.,  who  succeeded  him  in  1560,  was  but  ten 
years  old.  The  regency  passed  to  his  mother,  the 
Florentine  Catherine,  a  wily,  cat-like  woman,  who  had 
always  hitherto  been  kept  in  the  background,  and 
whose  chief  desire  was  to  keep  things  quiet  by  play- 
ing off  one  party  against  the  other.  She  at  once  re- 
leased Conde,  and  favoured  the  Bourbons  and  the 
Huguenots  to  keep  down  the  Guises,  even  permit- 
ting conferences  to  see  whether  the  French  Church 
could  be  reformed  so  as  to  satisfy  the  Calvinists. 
Proposals  were  sent  by  Guise's  brother,  the  Cardinal 
of  Lorraine,  to  the  council  then  sitting  at  Trent,  for 
vernacular  services,  the  marriage  of  the  clergy,  and 
other  alterations  which  might  win  back  the  Reformers. 
But  an  attack  by  the  followers  of  Guise  on  a  meeting 
of  Calvinists  at  Vassy,  of  whose  ringing  of  bells  his 
mother  had  complained,  led  to  the  first  bloodshed 
and  the  outbreak  of  a  civil  war. 


v.] 


THE  RELIGIOUS  WAR. 


67 


5.  The  Religious  War. — To  trace  each  stage 
of  the  war  would  be  impossible  within  these  limits. 
It  was  a  war  often  lulled  for  a  short  time,  and  often 
breaking  out  again,  and  in  which  the  actors  grew 
more  and  more  cruel.  The  Reformed  influence 
was  in  the  south,  the  Catholic  in  the  east.  Most  of 
the  provincial  cities  at  first  held  with  the  Bourbons, 
for  the  sake  of  civil  and  religious  freedom ;  though 
the  Guise  family  succeeded  to  the  popularity  of  the 
Burgundian  dukes  in  Paris.  Still  Catherine  persuaded 
Antony  of  Bourbon  to  return  to  court  just  as  his 
wife,  Queen  Jeanne  of  Navarre,  had  become  a  staunch 
Calvinist,  and  while  dreaming  of  exchanging  his  claim 
on  Navarre  for  the  kingdom  of  Sardinia,  he  was  killed 
on  the  Catholic  side  while  besieging  Rouen.  At  the 
first  outbreak  the  Huguenots  seemed  to  have  by  far 
the  greatest  influence.  An  endeavour  was  made  to 
seize  the  king's  person,  and  this  led  to  a  battle  at 
Dreux.  While  it  was  doubtful  Catherine  actually 
declared,  '^We  shall  have  to  say  our  prayers  in 
French."  Guise,  however,  retrieved  the  day,  and 
though  Montmorengy  was  made  prisoner  on  the  one 
side,  Conde  was  taken  on  the  other.  Orleans  was 
the  Huguenot  rallying-place,  and  while  besieging  it 
Guise  himself  was  assassinated.  His  death  was  be- 
lieved by  his  family  to  be  due  to  the  Admiral  de 
Coligny.    The  city  of  Rochelle,  fortified  by  Jeanne  of 

Navarre,  became  the  stronghold  of  the  Huguenots. 
15* 


68 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


Leader  after  leader  fell — Montmorengy,  on  the  one 
hand,  was  killed  at  Montcontour;  Conde,  on  the  other, 
was  shot  in  cold  blood  after  the  fight  of  Jarnac.  A 
truce  followed,  but  was  soon  broken  again,  and  in 
15  7 1  Coligny  was  the  only  man  of  age  and  stand- 
ing at  the  head  of  the  Huguenot  party;  while  the 
Catholics  had  as  leaders  Henry,  Duke  of  Anjou,  the 
king's  brother,  and  Henry,  Duke  of  Guise,  both  young 
men  of  little  more  than  twenty.  The  Huguenots  had 
been  beaten  at  all  points,  but  were  still  strong  enough 
to  have  wrung  from  their  enemies  permission  to  hold 
meetings  for  public  worship  within  unwalled  towns 
and  on  the  estates  of  such  nobles  as  held  with  them. 

6.  Catherine's  Policy. — Catherine  made  use  of 
the  suspension  of  arms  to  try  to  detach  the  Huguenot 
leaders,  by  entangling  them  in  the  pleasures  of  the 
court  and  lowering  their  sense  of  duty.  The  court 
was  studiously  brilliant.  Catherine  surrounded  herself 
with  a  bevy  of  ladies,  called  the  Queen-Mothef s 
Squadron,  whose  amusem.ents  were  found  for  the 
whole  day.  The  ladies  sat  at  their  tapestry  frames, 
while  Italian  poetry  and  romance  was  read  or  love- 
songs  sung  by  the  gentlemen ;  they  had  garden 
games  and  hunting-parties,  with  every  opening  for 
the  ladies  to  act  as  sirens  to  any  whom  the  queen 
wished  to  detach  from  the  principles  of  honour  and 
virtue,  and  bind  to  her' service.    Balls,  pageants,  and 


v.]        MASSACRE  OF  ST,  BARTHOLOMEW,  69 


theatricals  lollowed  in  the  evening,  and  there  was 
hardly  a  prince  or  noble  in  France  who  was  not 
carried  away  by  these  seductions  into  darker  habits  of 
profligacy.  Jeanne  of  Navarre  dreaded  them  for  her 
son  Henry,  whom  she  kept  as  long  as  possible  under 
training  in  religion,  learning,  and  hardy  habits,  in 
the  mountains  of  Beam ;  and  when  Catherine  tried  to 
draw  him  to  court  by  proposing  a  marriage  between 
him  and  her  youngest  daughter  Margaret,  Jeanne  left 
him  at  home,  and  went  herself  to  court.  Catherine 
tried  in  vain  to  bend  her  will  or  discover  her  secrets, 
and  her  death,  early  in  1572,  while  still  at  court,  was 
attributed  to  the  queen-mother. 

7.  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  (1572). — 
Jeanne's  son  Henry  was  immediately  summoned  to  con- 
clude the  marriage,  and  came  attended  by  all  the  most 
distinguished  Huguenots,  though  the  more  wary  of 
them  remained  at  home,  and  the  Baron  of  Rosny  said, 
**If  that  wedding  takes  place  the  favours  will  be 
crimson."  The  Duke  of  Guise  seems  to  have  resolved 
on  taking  this  opportunity  of  revenging  himself  for  his 
father's  murder,  but  the  queen-mother  was  undecided 
until  she  found  that  her  son  Charles,  who  had  been 
bidden  to  cajole  and  talk  over  the  Huguenot  chiefs, 
had  been  attracted  by  their  honesty  and  uprightness, 
and  was  ready  to  throw  himself  into  their  hands, 
and   escape  from  hers.     An  abortive  attempt  on 


70 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


Guise's  part  to  murder  the  Admiral  Coligny  led  to 
all  the  Huguenots  going  about  armed,  and  making 
demonstrations  which  alarmed  both  the  queen  and 
the  people  of  Paris.  Guise  and  the  Duke  of  Anjou 
were,  therefore,  allowed  to  work  their  will,  and  to 
rouse  the  bloodthirstiness  of  the  Paris  mob.  At 
midnight  of  the  24th  of  August,  1572,  St.  Bartholo- 
mew's night,  the  bell  of  the  church  of  St.  Germain 
I'Auxerrois  began  to  ring,  and  the  slaughter  was 
begun  by  men  distinguished  by  a  white  sleeve.  The 
king  sheltered  his  Huguenot  surgeon  and  nurse  in 
his  room.  The  young  King  of  Navarre  and  Prince 
of  Conde  were  threatened  into  conforming  to  the 
Church,  but  every  other  Huguenot  who  could  be 
found  was  massacred,  from  Coligny,  who  was  slain 
kneeling  in  his  bedroom  by  the  followers  of  Guise, 
down  to  the  poorest  and  youngest,  and  the  streets 
resounded  with  the  cry,  Kill !  kill ! "  In  every  city 
where  royal  troops  and  Guisard  partisans  had  been 
living  among  Huguenots,  the  same  hideous  work 
took  place  for  three  days,  sparing  neither  age  nor 
sex.  How  many  thousands  died,  it  is  impossible 
to  reckon,  but  the  work  was  so  wholesale  that  none 
were  left  except  those  in  the  southern  cities,  where  the 
Huguenots  had  been  too  strong  to  be  attacked,  and 
m  those  castles  where  the  seigneur  was  of  "the  religion." 
I'he  Catholic  party  thought  the  destruction  complete, 
the  court  went  in  state  to  return  thanks  for  deliver-^ 


v.] 


THE  LEAGUE. 


71 


ance  from  a  supposed  plot,  while  Coligny's  body  was 
hung  on  a  gibbet.  The  Pope  ordered  public  thanks- 
givings, while  Queen  Elizabeth  put  on  mourning,  and 
the  Emperor  Maximilian  IL,  alone  among  Catholic 
princes,  showed  any  horror  or  indignation.  But  the 
heart  of  the  unhappy  young  king  was  broken  by  the 
guilt  he  had  incurred.  Charles  IX.  sank  into  a 
decline,  and  died  in  1574,  finding  no  comfort  save 
in  the  surgeon  and  nurse  he  had  saved. 

8.  The  League. — His  brother,  Henry  III.,  who 
had  been  elected  King  of  Poland,  threw  up  that 
crown  in  favour  of  that  of  France.  He  was  of  a 
vain,  false,  weak  character,  superstitiously  devout,  and 
at  the  same  time  ferocious,  so  as  to  alienate  every 
one.  All  were  ashamed  of  a  man  who  dressed  in 
the  extreme  of  foppery,  with  a  rosary  of  death's 
heads  at  his  girdle,  and  passed  from  wild  dissipation 
to  abject  penance.  He  was  called  the  Paris  Church- 
warden and  the  Queen's  Hairdresser,"  for  he  passed 
from  her  toilette  to  the  decoration  of  the  walls  of 
churches  with  illuminations  cut  out  of  old  service- 
books.  Sometimes  he  went  about  surrounded  with 
little  dogs,  sometimes  flogged  himself  walking  bare- 
foot in  a  procession,  and  his  mignons,  or  favourites, 
were  the  scandal  of  the  country  by  their  pride, 
license,  and  savage  deeds.  The  war  broke  out 
again,  and  his  only  remaining  brother,  Francis,  Duke 


72 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


of  Alengon,  an  equally  hateful  and  contemptible 
being,  fled  from  court  to  the  Huguenot  army,  hoping 
to  force  his  brother  into  buying  his  submission ;  but 
when  the  King  of  Navarre  had  followed  him  and 
begun  the  struggle  in  earnest,  he  accepted  the  duchy 
of  Anjou,  and  returned  to  his  allegiance.  Francis  was 
invited  by  the  insurgent  Dutch  to  become  their  chief, 
and  spent  some  time  in  Holland,  but  returned,  un- 
successful and  dying.  As  the  king  was  childless, 
the  next  male  heir  was  Henry  of  Bourbon,  King  of 
Navarre,  who  had  fled  from  court  soon  after  Alengon 
returned  to  the  Huguenot  faith,  and  was  reigning  in 
his  two  counties  of  Bearn  and  Foix,  the  head  of  the 
^  Huguenots.  In  the  resolve  never  to  permit  a  heretic  to 
wear  the  French  crown.  Guise  and  his  party  formed  a 
Catholic  league,  to  force  Henry  HI.  to  choose  another 
successor.  Paris  was  devoted  to  Guise,  and  the  king, 
finding  himself  almost  a  prisoner  there,  left  the  city, 
but  was  again  mastered  by  the  duke  at  Blois,  and 
could  so  ill  brook  his  arrogance,  as  to  have  recourse  to 
assassination.  He  caused  him  to  be  slain  at  the  palace 
at  Blois  in  1588.  The  fury  of  the  League  was  so  great 
that  Henry  IH.  was  driven  to  take  refuge  with  the 
King  of  Navarre,  and  they  were  together  besieging 
Paris,  when  Henry  IH.  was  in  his  turn  murdered  by  a 
monk,  named  Clement,  in  1589. 

9.  Henry  IV. — The  Leaguers  proclaimed  as  king 


v.] 


HENRY  IV, 


73 


an  old  uncle  of  the  King  of  Navarre,  the  Cardinal 
of  Bourbon,  but  all  the  more  moderate  Catholics 
rallied  round  Henry  of  Navarre,  who  took  the  title  of 
Henry  IV,  At  Ivry,  in  Normandy,  Henry  met  the 
force  of  Leaguers,  and  defeated  them  by  his  brilliant 
courage.  "  Follow  my  white  plume,"  his  last  order 
to  his  troops,  became  one  of  the  sayings  the  French 
love  to  remember.  But  his  cause  was  still  not  won — 
Paris  held  out  against  him,  animated  by  almost  fana- 
tical fury,  and  while  he  was  besieging  it  France  was 
invaded  from  the  Netherlands.  The  old  Cardinal  of 
Bourbon  was  now  dead,  and  Philip  II.  considered  his 
daughter  Isabel,  whose  mother  was  the  eldest  daughter 
of  Henry  IL,  to  be  rightful  Queen  of  France.  He  sent 
therefore  his  ablest  general,  the  Duke  of  Parma,  to  co- 
operate with  the  Leaguers  and  place  her  on  the  throne. 
A  war  of  strategy  was  carried  on,  during  which  Henry 
kept  the  enemy  at  bay,  but  could  do  no  more,  since 
the  larger  number  of  his  people,  though  intending  to 
have  no  king  but  himself,  did  not  wish  him  to  gain 
too  easy  a  victory,  lest  in  that  case  he  should  remain 
a  Calvinist.  However,  he  was  only  waiting  to  recant 
till  he  could  do  so  with  a  good  grace.  He  really 
preferred  Catholicism,  and  had  only  been  a  political 
Huguenot ;  and  his  best  and  most  faithful  adviser,  the 
Baron  of  Rosny,  better  known  as  Duke  of  Sully, 
though  a  staunch  Calvinist  himself,  recommended  the 
change  as  the  only  means  of  restoring  peace  to  the 


74 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


kingdom.  There  was  little  more  resistance  to  Henry 
after  he  had  again  been  received  by  the  Church  in 
1592.  Paris,  weary  of  the  long  war,  opened  its 
gates  in  1593,  and  the  inhabitants  crowded  round 
him  with  ecstasy,  so  that  he  said,  "  Poor  people, 
they  are  hungry  for  the  sight  of  a  king ! "  The 
Leaguers  made  their  peace,  and  when  Philip  of  Spain 
again  attacked  Henry,  the  young  Duke  of  Guise  was 
one  of  the  first  to  hasten  to  the  defence.  Philip  saw 
that  there  were  no  further  hopes  for  his  daughter,  and 
peace  was  made  in  1596. 

10.  The  Edict  of  Nantes. — Two  years  later,  in 
1598,  Henry  put  forth  what  was  called  the  Edict  of 
Nantes,  because  first  registered  in  that  parliament.  It 
secured  to  the  Huguenots  equal  civil  rights  with  those 
of  the  Catholics,  accepted  their  marriages,  gave  them, 
under  restrictions,  permission  to  meet  for  worship 
and  for  consultations,  and  granted  them  cities  for  the 
security  of  their  rights,  of  which  La  Rochelle  was  the 
chief.  The  Calvinists  had  been  nearly  exterminated 
in  the  north,  but  there  were  still  a  large  number  in  the 
south  of  France,  and  the  burghers  of  the  chief  southern 
cities  were  mostly  Huguenot.  The  war  had  been  from 
the  first  a  very  horrible  one;  there  had  been  savage 
slaughter,  and  still  more  savage  reprisals  on  each  side. 
The  young  nobles  had  been  trained  into  making  a 
fashion  of  ferocity,  and  practising  graceful  ways  of 


v.] 


HENRY'S  PLANS, 


IS 


striking  death-blows.  Whole  districts  had  been  laid 
waste,  churches  and  abbeys  destroyed,  tombs  rifled, 
and  the  whole  population  accustomed  to  every  sort  of 
horror  and  suffering;  while  nobody  but  Henry  IV. 
himself,  and  the  Duke  of  Sully,  had  any  notion  either 
of  statesmanship  or  of  religious  toleration. 

II.  Henry's  Plans. — just  as  the  reign  of  Louis 
XI.  had  been  a  period  of  rest  and  recovery  from  the 
English  wars,  so  that  of  Henry  IV.  was  one  of  re- 
storation from  the  ravages  of  thirty  years  of  intermittent 
civil  war.  The  king  himself  not  only  had  bright  and 
engaging  manners,  but  was  a  man  of  large  heart  and 
mind;  and  Sully  did  much  for  the  welfare  of  the  coun- 
try. Roads,  canals,  bridges,  postal  communications, 
manufactures,  extended  commerce,  all  owed  their  pro- 
motion to  him,  and  brought  prosperity  to  the  burgher 
class ;  and  the  king  was  especially  endeared  to  the 
peasantry  by  his  saying  that  he  hoped  for  the  time 
when  no  cottage  would  be  without  a  good  fowl  in  its 
pot.  The  great  silk  manufactories  of  southern  France 
chiefly  arose  under  his  encouragement,  and  there  was 
prosperity  of  every  kind.  The  Church  itself  w^as  in  a 
far  better  state  than  before.  Some  of  the  best  men 
of  any  time  were  then  living — in  especial  Vincent  de 
Paul,  who  did  much  to  improve  the  training  of  the 
parochial  clergy,  and  who  founded  the  order  of  Sisters 
of  Charity,  who  prevented  the  misery  of  the  streets  of 


76 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


Paris  from  ever  being  so  frightful  as  in  those  days  when 
deserted  children  became  the  prey  of  wolves,  dogs, 
and  pigs.  The  nobles,  who  had  grown  into  insolence 
during  the  wars,  either  as  favourites  of  Henry  HI.  or 
as  zealous  supporters  of  the  Huguenot  cause,  were 
subdued  and  tamed.  The  most  noted  of  these  were 
the  Duke  of  Bouillon,  the  owner  of  the  small  princi- 
pality of  Sedan,  who  was  reduced  to  obedience  by 
the  sight  of  Sully's  formidable  train  of  artillery ;  and 
the  Marshal  Duke  of  Biron,  who,  thinking  that  Henry 
had  not  sufficiently  rewarded  his  services,  intrigued 
with  Spain  and  Savoy,  and  was  beheaded  for  his  trea- 
son. Hatred  to  the  house  of  Austria  in  Spain  and 
Germany  was  as  keen  as  ever  in  France;  and  in  1610 
Henry  IV.  was  prepared  for  another  war  on  the  plea 
of  a  disputed  succession  to  the  duchy  of  Cleves.  The 
old  fanaticism  still  lingered  in  Paris,  and  Henry  had 
been  advised  to  beware  of  pageants  there ;  but  it  was 
necessary  that  his  second  wife,  Mary  de'  Medici, 
should  be  crowned  before  he  went  to  the  war,  as  she 
was  to  be  left  regent.  Two  days  after  the  coronation, 
as  Henry  was  going  to  the  arsenal  to  visit  his  old 
friend  Sully,  he  was  stabbed  to  the  heart  in  his  coach, 
in  the  streets  of  Paris,  by  a  fanatic  named  Ravaillac. 
The  French  call  him  Le  Grand  Monarque;  and  he 
was  one  of  the  most  attractive  and  benevolent  of 
men,  winning  the  hearts  of  all  who  approached  him, 
but  the  immorality  of  his  life  did  much  to  confirm  the 


v.]  THE  STATES-GENERAL  OF  1614.  77 

already  low  standard  that  prevailed  among  princes 
and  nobles  in  France. 

12.  The  States-General  of  1614.— Henry's 
second  wife,  Mary  de'  Medici,  became  regent,  for  her 
son,  Louis  XILL.,  was  only  ten  years  old,  and  indeed 
his  character  was  so  weak  that  his  whole  reign  was 
only  one  long  minority.  Mary  de'  Medici  was  entirely 
under  the  dominion  of  an  Italian  favourite  named 
Concini,  and  his  wife,  and  their  whole  endeavour  was 
to  amass  riches  for  themselves  and  keep  the  young 
king  in  helpless  ignorance,  while  they  undid  all  that 
Sully  had  effected,  and  took  bribes  shamelessly.  The 
Prince  of  Conde  tried  to  overthrow  them,  and,  in 
hopes  of  strengthening  herself,  in  16 14  Mary  sum- 
moned together  the  States-General.  There  came  464 
members,  132  for  the  nobles,  140  for  the  clergy,  and 
192  for  the  third  estate,  i.e,  the  burghers,  and  these, 
being  mostly  lawyers  and  magistrates  from  the  pro- 
vinces, were  resolved  to  make  their  voices  heard. 
Taxation  was  growing  worse  and  worse.  Not  only 
was  it  confined  to  the  burgher  and  peasant  class, 
exempting  the  clergy  and  the  nobles,  among  which  last 
were  included  their  families  to  the  remotest  generation, 
but  it  had  become  the  court  custom  to  multiply 
offices,  in  order  to  pension  the  nobles,  and  keep  them 
quiet;  and  this,  together  with  the  expenses  of  the  army, 

made  the  weight  of  taxation  ruinous.    Moreover,  the 

.  8 


78 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


presentation  to  the  civil  offices  held  by  lawyers  was 
made  hereditary  in  their  families,  on  payment  of  a 
sum  down,  and  of  fees  at  the  death  of  each  holder. 
All  these  abuses  were  complained  of ;  and  one  of  the 
deputies  even  told  the  nobility  that  if  they  did  not 
learn  to  treat  the  despised  classes  below  them  as 
younger  brothers,  they  would  lay  up  a  terrible  store 
of  retribution  for  themselves.  A  petition  to  the  king 
was  drawn  up,  and  was  received,  but  never  answered. 
The  doors  of  the  house  of  assembly  were  closed — the 
members  were  told  it  was  by  order  of  the  king — and 
the  States-General  never  met  again  for  177  years, 
when  the  storm  was  just  ready  to  fall. 

13.  The  Siege  of  Rochelle.— The  rottenness 
of  the  State  was  chiefly  owing  to  the  nobility,  who, 
as  long  as  they  were  allowed  to  grind  down  their 
peasants  and  shine  at  court,  had  no  sense  of  duty  or 
public  spirit,  and  hated  the  burghers  and  lawyers  far  too 
much  to  make  common  cause  with  them  against  the 
constantly  increasing  power  of  the  throne  They  only 
intrigued  and  struggled  for  personal  advantages  and 
rivalries,  and  never  thought  of  the  good  of  the  State. 
They  bitterly  hated  Concini,  the  Marshal  d'Ancre,  as 
he  had  been  created,,  but  he  remained  in  power  till 
1 6 14,  when  one  of  the  king's  gentlemen,  Albert  de 
Luynes,  plotted  with  the  king  himself  and  a  few  of 
his  guards  for  his  deliverance.     Nothing  could  be 


v.]  THE  SIEGE  OF  ROCHELLE.  79 

easier  than  the  execution.  The  king  ordered  the 
captain  of  the  guards  to  arrest  Concini,  and  kill  him 
if  he  resisted ;  and  this  was  done.  Concini  was  cut 
down  on  the  steps  of  the  Louvre,  and  Louis  exclaimed, 
"At  last  I  am  a  king."  But  it  was  not  in  him  to  be 
a  king,  and  he  never  was  one  all  his  life.  He  only 
passed  under  the  dominion  of  De  Luynes,  who  was 
a  high-spirited  young  noble.  The  Huguenots  had 
been  holding  assemblies,  which  were  considered  more 
political  than  religious,  and  their  towns  of  security 
were  a  grievance  to  royalty.  War  broke  out  again, 
and  Louis  himself  went  with  De  Luynes  to  be- 
siege Montauban.  The  place  was  taken,  but  disease 
broke  out  in  the  army,  and  De  Luynes  died.  There 
was  a  fresh  struggle  for  power  between  the  queen- 
mother  and  the  Prince  of  Conde,  ending  in  both  being 
set  aside  by  the  queen's  almoner,  Armand  de  Riche- 
lieu, Bishop  of  Lugon,  and  aftenvards  a  cardinal,  the 
ablest  statesman  then  in  Europe,  who  gained  complete 
dominion  over  the  king  and  country,  and  ruled  them 
both  with  a  rod  of  iron.  The  Huguenots  were  gra- 
dually driven  out  of  all  their  strongholds,  till  only 
Rochelle  remained  to  them.  This  city  was  bravely 
and  patiently  defended  by  the  magistrates  and  the 
Duke  of  Rohan,  with  hopes  of  succour  from  England, 
until  these  being  disconcerted  by  the  murder  of  the 
Duke  of  Buckingham,  they  were  forced  to  surrender, 
after  having  held  out  for  more  than  a  year.  Louis 


8o 


FRANCE. 


[chap.  v. 


XIII.  entered  in  triumph,  deprived  the  city  of  all  its 
privileges,  and  thus  in  1628  concluded  the  war  that 
had  begun  by  the  attack  of  the  Guisards  on  the  con- 
gregation at  Vassy,  in  156 1.  The  lives  and  properties 
of  the  Huguenots  were  still  secure,  but  all  favour  was 
closed  against  them,  and  every  encouragement  held 
out  to  them  to  join  the  Church.  Many  of  the  worst 
scandals  had  been  removed,  and  the  clergy  were  much 
improved;  and,  from  whatever  motive  it  might  be, 
many  of  the  more  influential  Huguenots  began  to 
conform  to  the  State  religion. 


CHAPTER  VL 


POWER   OF  THE  CROWN. 

I.  Richelieu's  Administration. — Cardinal  de 
Richelieu's  whole  idea  of  statesmanship  consisted  in 
making  the  King  of  France  the  greatest  of  princes 
at  home  and  abroad.  To  make  afiything  great  of 
Louis  XIIL,  who  was  feeble  alike  in  mind  and  body, 
was  beyond  any  one's  power,  and  Richelieu  kept  him 
in  absolute  subjection,  allowing  him  a  favourite  with 
whom  to  hunt,  talk,  and  amuse  himself,  but  if  the 
friend  attempted  to  rouse  the  king  to  shake  off  the 
yoke,  crushing  him  ruthlessly.  It  was  the  crown  rather 
than  the  king  that  the  cardinal  exalted,  putting  down 
whatever  resisted.  Gaston,  Duke  of  Orleans,  the  king's 
only  brother,  made  a  futile  struggle  for  power,  and  free- 
dom of  choice  in  marriage,  but  was  soon  overcome. 
He  w^as  spared,  as  being  the  only  heir  to  the  kingdom, 
but  the  Duke  of  Montmorency,  who  had  been  led  into 
his  rebellion,  was  brought  to  the  block,  amid  the  pity 
and  terror  of  all  France.    Whoever  seemed  dangerous 


82 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


to  the  State,  or  showed  any  spirit  of  independence,  was 
marked  by  the  cardinal,  and  suffered  a  hopeless  im- 
prisonment, if  nothing  worse;  but  at  the  same  time  his 
government  was  intelligent  and  able,  and  promoted 
prosperity,  as  far  as  was  possible  where  there  was  such 
a  crushing  of  individual  spirit  and  enterprise.  Riche- 
lieu's plan,  in  fact,  was  to  found  a  despotism,  though 
a  wise  and  well-ordered  despotism,  at  home,  while 
he  made  France  great  by  conquests  abroad.  And  at 
this  time  the  ambition  of  France  found  a  favourable 
field  in  the  state  both  of  Germany  and  of  Spain. 

2.  The  War  in  Flanders  and  Italy. — The 
Thirty  Years'  War  had  been  raging  in  Germany  for 
many  years,  and  France  had  taken  no  part  in  it, 
beyond  encouraging  the  Swedes  and  the  Protestant 
Germans,  as  the  enemies  of  the  Emperor.  But  the 
policy  of  Richelieu  required  that  the  disunion 
between  its  Catholic  and  Protestant  states  should  be 
maintained,  and  when  things  began  to  tend  towards 
peace  from  mutual  exhaustion,  the  cardinal  interfered, 
and  induced  the  Protestant  party  to  continue  the  war 
by  giving  them  money  and  reinforcements.  A  war 
had  already  begun  in  Italy  on  behalf  of  the  Duke  of 
Nevers,  who  had  become  heir  to  the  duchy  of  Mantua, 
but  whose  family  had  lived  in  France  so  long  that  the 
Emperor  and  the  King  of  Spain  supported  a  more 
distant  claim  of  the  Duke  of  Savoy  to  part  of  the 


VI.]     THE  WAR  IN  FLANDERS  AND  ITALY.  83 


duchy,  rather  than  admit  a  French  prince  into  Italy. 
Richelieu  was  quick  to  seize  this  pretext  for  attacking 
Spain,  for  Spain  was  now  dying  into  a  weak  power, 
and  he  saw  in  the  war  a  means  of  acquiring  the 
Netherlands,  which  belonged  to  the  Spanish  crown. 
At  first  nothing  important  was  done,  but  the  Spaniards 
and  Germans  were  worn  out,  while  two  young  and  able 
captains  were  growing  up  among  the  French — the  Vis- 
count of  Turenne,  younger  son  to  the  Duke  of  Bouillon, 
and  the  Duke  of  Enghien,  eldest  son  of  the  Prince  of 
Conde — and  Richelieu's  policy  soon  secured  a  brilliant 
career  of  success.  Elsass,  Lorraine,  Artois,  Catalonia, 
and  Savoy,  all  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  French,  and 
from  a  chamber  of  sickness  the  cardinal  directed  the 
affairs  of  three  armies,  as  well  as  made  himself  feared 
and  respected  by  the  whole  kingdom.  Cinq  Mars,  the 
last  favourite  he  had  given  the  king,  plotted  his  over- 
throw, with  the  help  of  the  Spaniards,  but  was  detected 
and  executed,  when  the  great  minister  was  already  at 
death's  door.  Richelieu  recommended  an  Italian 
priest,  Julius  Mazarin,  whom  he  had  trained  to  work 
under  him,  to  carry  on  the  government,  and  died  in  the 
December  of  1642.  The  king  only  survived  him  five 
months,  dying  on  the  14th  of  May,  1643.  The  war  was 
continued  on  the  lines  Richelieu  had  laid  down,  and 
four  days  after  the  death  of  Louis  XIII.  the  army  in 
the  Low  Countries  gained  a  splendid  victory  at  Rocroy, 

under  the  Duke  of  Enghien,  entirely  destroving  the  old 
16* 


84 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


Spanish  infantry.  The  battles  of  Freiburg,  Nordlingen, 
and  Lens  raised  the  fame  of  the  French  generals  to 
the  highest  pitch,  and  in  1649  reduced  the  Emperor  to 
make  peace  in  the  treaty  of  Miinster.  France  obtained 
as  her  spoil  the  three  bishoprics,  Metz,  Toul,  and 
Verdun,  ten  cities  in  Elsass,  Brisach,  and  the  Sundgau, 
with  the  Savoyard  town  of  Pignerol;  but  the  war  with 
Spain  continued  till  -1659,  when  Louis  XIV.  engaged  to 
marry  Maria  Theresa,  a  daughter  of  the  King  of  Spain. 

3.  The  Fronde. — When  an  heir  had  long  been 
despaired  of,  Anne  of  Austria,  the  wife  of  Louis 
XIIL,  had  become  the  mother  of  two  sons,  the 
eldest  of  whom,  Louis  XI V,^  was  only  five  years  old 
at  the  time  of  his  father's  death.  The  queen-mother 
became  regent,  and  trusted  entirely  to  Mazarin,  who 
had  become  a  cardinal,  and  pursued  the  policy  of 
Richelieu.  But  what  had  been  endured  from  a  man  by 
birth  a  French  noble,  was  intolerable  from  a  low-born 
Italian.  "  After  the  lion  comes  the  fox,"  was  the 
saying,  and  the  Parliament  of  Paris  made  a  last  stand 
by  refusing  to  register  the  royal  edict  for  fresh  taxes, 
being  supported  both  by  the  burghers  of  Paris,  and  by 
a  great  number  of  the  nobility,  who  were  personally 
jealous  of  Mazarin.  This  party  was  called  the  Fronde, 
because  in  their  discussions  each  man  stood  forth, 
launched  his  speech,  and  retreated,  just  as  the  boys 
did  with  slings  {fronde)  and  stones  in  the  streets. 


VI.] 


THE  FRONDE, 


85 


The  struggle  became  serious,  but  only  a  few  of  the 
lawyers  in  .  the  parliament  had  any  real  principle  or 
public  spirit ;  all  the  other  actors  caballed  out  of 
jealousy  and  party  spirit,  making  tools  of  ^'  the  men  of 
the  gown,"  whom  they  hated  and  despised,  though 
mostly  far  their  superiors  in  worth  and  intelligence. 
Anne  of  Austria  held  fast  by  Mazarin,  and  was  sup- 
ported by  the  Duke  of  Enghien,  whom  his  father's 
death  had  made  Prince  of  Conde.  Conde's  assistance 
enabled  her  to  blockade  Paris  and  bring  the  parlia- 
ment to  terms,  which  concluded  the  first  act  of  the 
Fronde,  with  the  banishment  of  Mazarin  as  a  peace 
offering.  Conde,  however^  became  so  arrogant  and 
overbearing  that  the  queen  caused*  him  to  be  im- 
prisoned, whereupon  his  wife  and  his  other  friends 
began  a  fresh  war  for  his  liberation,  and  the  queen 
was  forced  to  yield ;  but  he  again  showed  himself  so 
tyrannical  that  the  queen  and  the  parliament  became 
reconciled  and  united  to  put  him  down,  giving  the 
command  of  the  troops  to  Turenne.  Again  there  w^as 
a  battle  at  the  gates  of  Paris,  in  which  all  Conde's 
friends  were  wounded,  and  he  himself  so  entirely 
worsted  that  he  had  to  go  into  exile,  when  he  entered 
the  Spanish  service,  while  Mazarin  returned  to  power 
at  home. 

4.  The  Court  of  Anne  of  Austria. — The 
court  of  France,  though  never  pure,  was  much  im- 


86 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


proved  during  the  reign  of  Louis  XIII.  and  the 
regency  of  Anne  of  Austria.  There  was  a  spirit  of 
romance  and  grace  about  it,  somewhat  cumbrous  and 
stately,  but  outwardly  pure  and  refined,  and  quite 
a  step  out  of  the  gross  and  open  vice  of  the  former 
reigns.  The  Duchess  de  Rambouillet,  a  lady  of 
great  grace  and  wit,  made  her  house  the  centre  of  a 
brilliant  society,  which  set  itself  to  raise  and  refine 
the  manners,  literature,  and  language  of  the  time. 
No  word  that  was  considered  vulgar  or  coarse  was 
allowed  to  pass  muster;  and  though  in  process  of 
time  this  censorship  became  pedantic  and  petty, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  much  was  done  to  purify  both 
the  language  and  the  tone  of  thought.  Poems,  plays, 
epigrams,  eulogiums,  and  even  sermons  were  re- 
^hearsed  before  the  committee  of  taste  in  the  Hotel 
de  Rambouillet,  and  a  wonderful  new  stimulus  was 
there  given,  not  only  to  ornamental  but  to  solid 
literature.  Many  of  the  great  men  who  made  France 
illustrious  were  either  ending  or  beginning  their 
careers  at  this  time.  Memoir  writing  specially 
flourished,  and  the  characters  of  the  men  and  women 
of  the  court  are  known  to  us  on  all  sides.  Cardinal 
de  Retz  and  the  Duke  of  Rochefoucauld,  both  deeply 
engaged  in  the  Fronde,  have  left,  the  one  memoirs, 
the  other  maxims  of  great  power  of  irony.  Mme. 
de  Motteville,  one  of  the  queen's  ladies,  wrote  a  full 
history  of  the  court.    Blaise  Pascal,  one  of  the  greatest 


VI.]       THE  COURT  OF  ANNE  OF  AUSTRIA,  87 


geniuses  of  all  times,  was  attaching  himself  to  the 
Jansenists.  This  religious  party,  so  called  from 
Jansen,  a  Dutch  priest,  whose  opinions  were  imputed 
to  them,  had  sprung  up  around  the  reformed  convent 
of  Port  Royal,  and  numbered  among  them  some  of 
the  ablest  and  best  men  of  the  time  ;  but  the  Jesuits 
considered  them  to  hold  false  doctrine,  and  there  was 
a  continual  debate,  ending  at  length  in  the  persecu- 
tion of  the  Jansenists.  Pascal's  "  Provincial  Letters," 
exposing  the  Jesuit  system,  were  among  the  ablest 
writings  of  the  age.  Philosophy,  poetry,  science,  his- 
tory, art,  were  all  making  great  progress,  though  there 
was  a  stateliness  and  formality  in  all  that  was  said  and 
done,  redolent  of  the  Spanish  queen's  etiquette  and 
the  fastidious  refinement  of  the  Hotel  Rambouillet. 

5.  Court  of  Louis  XIV.— The  attempt  from 
the  earliest  times  of  the  French  monarchy  had  been  to 
draw  all  government  into  the  hands  of  the  sovereign, 
and  the  suppression  of  the  Fronde  completed  the 
work.  Louis  XIV.,  though  ill  educated,  was  a  man 
of  considerable  ability,  much  industry,  and  great 
force  of  character,  arising  from  a  profound  belief  that 
France  was  the  first  country  in  the  world,  and  himself 
the  first  of  Frenchmen;  and  he  had  a  magnificent 
courtesy  of  demeanour,  which  so  impressed  all  who 
came  near  him  as  to  make  them  his  willing  slaves. 
"  There  is  enough  in  him  to  make  four  kings  and  one 


88 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


respectable  man  besides  "  was  what  Mazarin  said  of 
him;  and  when  in  1661  the  cardinal  died,  the  king 
showed  himself  fully  equal  to  becoming  his  own  prime 
minister.  "The  State  is  myself,"  he  said,  and  all 
centred  upon  him  so  that  no  room  was  left  for 
statesmen.  The  court  was,  however,  in  a  most  bril- 
liant state.  There  had  been  an  unusual  outburst 
of  talent  of  every  kind  in  the  lull  after  the  Wars 
of  Religion,  and  in  generals,  thinkers,  artists,  and 
men  of  literature,  France  was  unusually  rich.  The 
king  had  a  wonderful  power  of  self-assertion,  which 
attached  them  all  to  him  almost  as  if  he  were  a  sort 
of  divinity.  The  stately,  elaborate  Spanish  etiquette 
brought  in  by  his  mother,  Anne  of  Austria,  became 
absolutely  an  engine  of  government.  Henry  IV.  had 
begun  the  evil  custom  of  keeping  the  nobles  quiet 
by  giving  them  situations  at  court,  with  pensions 
attached,  and  these  ofifices  were  multiplied  to  the  most 
enormous  and  absurd  degree,  so  that  every  royal 
personage  had  some  hundreds  of  personal  attendants. 
Princes  of  the  blood  and  nobles  of  every  degree  were 
contented  to  hang  about  the  court,  crowding  into 
the  most  narrow  lodgings  at  Versailles,  and  throng- 
ing its  anterooms ;  and  to  be  ordered  to  remain  in 
the  country  was  a  most  severe  punishment. 

6.  France  under  Louis  XIV.— There  was,  in 
fact,  nothing  but  the  chase  to  occupy  a  gentleman 


VI.]  FRANCE  UNDER  LOUIS  XIV.  89 

on  his  own  estate,  for  he  was  allowed  no  duties  or 
responsibilities.  Each  province  had  a  governor  or 
intendanf,  a  sort  of  viceroy,  and  the  administration  of 
the  cities  was  managed  chiefly  on  the  part  of  the  king, 
even  the  mayors  obtaining  their  posts  by  purchase. 
The  unhappy  peasants  had  to  pay  in  the  first  place' 
the  taxes  to  Government,  out  of  which  were  defrayed 
an  intolerable  number  of  pensions,  many  for  useless 
offices ;  next,  the  rents  and  dues  which  supported  their 
lord's  expenditure  at  court ;  and,  thirdly,  the  tithes  and 
fees  of  the  clergy.  Besides  which,  they  were  called  off 
from  the  cultivation  of  their  own  fields  for  a  certain 
number  of  days  to  work  at  the  roads ;  their  horses 
might  be  used  by  royal  messengers  ;  their  lord's  crops 
had  to  be  got  in  by  their  labour  gratis,  while  their  own 
were  spoiling ;  and,  in  short,  the  only  wonder  is  how 
they  existed  at  all.  Their  hovels  and  their  food  were 
wretched,  and  any  attempt  to  amend  their  condition 
on  the  part  of  their  lord  would  have  been  looked  on 
as  betokening  dangerous  designs,  and  probably  have 
landed  him  in  the  Bastille.  The  peasants  of  Brittany 
— where  the  old  constitution  had  been  less  entirely 
ruined — and  those  of  Anjou  were  in  a  less  oppressed 
condition,  and  in  the  cities  trade  flourished.  Colbert, 
the  comptroller-general  of  the  finances,  was  so  ex- 
cellent a  manager  that  the  pressure  of  taxation  was 
endurable  in  his  time,  and  he  promoted  new  manu- 
factures, such  as  glass  at  Cherbourg,  cloth  at  Abbeville, 
9 


90 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


silk  at  Lyons ;  he  also  tried  to  promote  commerce  and 
colonization,  and  to  create  a  navy.  There  was  a 
great  appearance  of  prosperity,  and  in  every  depart- 
ment there  was  wonderful  ability.  The  Reformation 
had  led  to  a  considerable  revival  among  the  Roman 
Catholics  themselves.  The  theological  colleges  estab- 
lished in  the  last  reign  had  much  improved  the  tone 
of  the  clergy.  Bossuet,  Bishop  of  Meaux,  was  one 
of  the  most  noted  preachers  who  ever  existed,  and 
Fenelon,  Archbishop  of  Cambrai,  one  of  the  best  of 
men.  A  reform  of  discipline,  begun  in  the  convent 
of  Port  Royal,  ended  by  attracting  and  gathering  to- 
gether some  of  the  most  excellent  and  able  persons  in 
France — among  them  Blaise  Pascal,  a  man  of  mar- 
vellous genius  and  depth  of  thought,  and  Racine,  the 
chief  French  dramatic  poet.  Their  chief  director,  the 
Abbot  of  St.  Cyran,  was  however,  a  pupil  of  Jansen,  a 
Dutch  ecclesiastic,  whose  views  on  abstruse  questions 
of  grace  were  condemned  by  the  Jesuits ;  and  as  the 
Port- Royalists  would  not  disown  the  doctrines  attri- 
buted to  him,  they  were  discouraged  and  persecuted 
throughout  Louis's  reign,  more  because  he  was  jealous 
of  what  would  not  bend  to  his  will  than  for  any  real 
want  of  conformity.  Pascal's  famous  "  Provincial 
Letters  "  were  put  forth  during  this  controversy  ;  and 
in  fact,  the  literature  of  France  reached  its  Augustan 
age  during  this  reign,  and  the  language  acquired  its 
standard  perfection. 


VI.]        jvAjR  in  the  low  countries.  91 

7.  War  in  the  Low  Countries. — Maria  Theresa, 
the  queen  of  Louis  XIV.,  was  the  child  of  the  first 
marriage  of  Philip  IV.  of  Spain ;  and  on  her  father's 
death  in  1661,  Louis,  on  pretext  of  an  old  law  in 
Brabant,  which  gave  the  daughters  of  a  first  mar- 
riage the  preference  over  the  sons  of  a  second, 
claimed  the  Low  Countries  from  the  young  Charles  II. 
of  Spaiii  He  thus  began  a  war  which  was  really  a 
continuance  of  the  old  struggle  between  France  and 
Burgundy,  and  of  the  endeavour  of  France  to  stretch 
her  frontier  to  the  Rhine.  At  first  England,  Holland, 
and  Sweden  united  against  him,  and  obliged  him  to 
make  the  peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  in  1668;  but  he 
then  succeeded  in  bribing  Charles  11.  of  England  to 
forsake  the  cause  of  the  Dutch,  and  the  war  was  re- 
newed in  1672.  William,  Prince  of  Orange,  Louis's 
most  determined  enemy  through  life,  kept  up  the 
spirits  of  the  Dutch,  and  they  obtained  aid  from 
Germany  and  Spain,  through  a  six  years'  terrible  war, 
in  which  the  great  Turenne  was  killed  at  Saltzbach,  in 
Germany.  At  last,  from  exhaustion,  all  parties  were 
compelled  to  conclude  the  peace  of  Nimeguen  in 
1678.  Taking  advantage  of  undefined  terms  in 
this  treaty,  Louis  seized  various  cities  belonging  to 
German  princes,  and  likewise  the  free  imperial  city 
of  Strassburg,  when  all  Germany  was  too  much  worn 
out  by  the  long  war  to  offer  resistance.  France  was 
full  of  self  glorification,  the  king  was  viewed  almost 


92 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


as  a  demi-god,  and  the  splendour  of  his  court  and 
of  his  buildings,  especially  the  palace  at  Versailles, 
with  its  gardens  and  fountains,  kept  up  the  delusion  of 
his  greatness. 

8.  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes. — In 
1685  Louis  supposed  that  the  Huguenots  had  been  so 
reduced  in  numbers  that  the  Edict  of  Nantes  could 
be  repealed.  All  freedom  of  worship  was  denied 
them ;  their  ministers  were  banished,  but  their  flocks 
were  not  allowed  to  follow  them.  If  taken  while  try- 
ing to  escape,  men  were  sent  to  the  galleys,  women 
to  captivity,  and  children  to  convents  for  education. 
Dragoons  were  quartered  on  families  to  torment  them 
into  going  to  mass.  A  few  made  head  in  the  wild 
moors  of  the  Cevennes  under  a  brave  youth  named 
CavaUer,  and  others  endured  severe  persecution  in 
the  south  of  France,  Dragoons  were  quartered  on 
them,  who  made  it  their  business  to  torment  and 
insult  them ;  their  marriages  were  declared  invalid, 
their  children  taken  from  them  to  be  educated  in  the 
Roman  Catholic  faith.  A  great  number,  amounting 
to  at  least  100,000,  succeeded  in  escaping,  chiefly  to 
Prussia,  Holland,  and  England,  whither  they  carried 
many  of  the  manufactures  that  Colbert  had  taken  so 
much  pains  to  estabUsh.  Many  of  those  who  settled 
in  England  were  silk  weavers,  and  a  large  colony  was 
thus  established  at  Spitalfields,  which  long  kept  up  its 
French  character. 


VI.]    THE  WAR  OF  THE  SUCCESSION  IN  SPAIN,  93 

9.  The  War  of  the  Palatinate. — This  brutal  act 
of  tyranny  was  followed  by  a  fresh  attack  on  Germany. 
On  the  plea  of  a  supposed  inheritance  of  his  sister-in- 
law,  the  Duchess  of  Orleans,  Louis  invaded  the  Pala- 
tinate on  the  Rhine,  and  carried  on  one  of  the  most 
ferocious  wars  in  history,  while  he  was  at  the  same 
time  supporting  the  cause  of  his  cousin,  James  II.  of 
England,  after  he  had  fled  and  abdicated  on  the 
arrival  of  William  of  Orange.  During  this  war,  how- 
ever, that  generation  of  able  men  who  had  grown  up 
with  Louis  began  to  pass  away,  and  his  success  was 
not  so  uniform ;  while,  Colbert  being  dead,  taxation 
began  to  be  more  felt  by  the  exhausted  people,  and 
peace  was  made  at  Ryswick  in  1697; 

10.  The  War  of  the  Succession  in  Spain. — The 
last  of  the  four  great  wars  of  Louis's  reign  was  far 
more  unfortunate.  Charles  II.  of  Spain  died  child- 
less, naming  as  his  successor  a  French  prince,  Philip, 
Duke  of  Anjou,  the  second  son  of  the  only  son  of 
Charles's  eldest  sister,  the  queen  of  Louis  XIV.  But 
the  Powers  of  Europe,  at  the  Peace  of  Ryswick, 
had  agreed  that  the  crown  of  Spain  should  go  to 
Charles  of  Austria,  second  son  of  the  Emperor  Leo- 
pold, who  was  the  descendant  of  younger  sisters  of 
the  royal  Spanish  line,  but  did  not  excite  the  fear 
and  jealousy  of  Europe,  as  did  a  scion  of  the  already 
overweening  house  of  Bourbon.    This  led  to  the  War 


94 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


of  the  Spanish  Succession,  England  and  Holland  sup- 
porting Charles,  and  fighting  with  Louis  in  Spain, 
Savoy,  and  the  Low  Countries.  In  Spain  Louis  was 
ultimately  successful,  and  his  grandson  Philip  V.  re- 
tained the  throne ;  but  the  troops  which  his  ally,  the 
Elector  of  Bavaria,  introduced  into  Germany  were 
totally  overthrown  at  Blenheim  by  the  English  army 
under  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  and  the  Austrian 
under  Prince  Eugene,  a  son  of  a  younger  branch  of  the 
house  of  Savoy.  Eugene  had  been  bred  up  in  France, 
but,  having  bitterly  offended  Louis  by  calling  him  a 
stage  king  for  show  and  a  chess  king  for  use,  had 
entered  the  Emperor's  service,  and  was  one  of  his 
chief  enemies.  He  aided  his  cousin,  Duke  Victor 
Amadeus  of  Savoy,  in  repulsing  the  French  attacks 
in  that  quarter,  gained  a  great  victory  at  Turin,  and 
advanced  into  Provence.  Marlborough  was  likewise 
in  full  career  of  victory  in  the  Low  Countries,  and 
gained  there  the  battle  of  Ramillies. 

II.  Peace  of  Utrecht. — Louis  had  outlived  his 
good  fortune.  His  great  generals  and  statesmen  had 
passed  away.  The  country  was  exhausted,  famine  was 
preying  on  the  wretched  peasantry,  supplies  could  not 
be  found,  and  one  city  after  another,  of  those  Louis 
had  seized,  was  retaken.  New  victories  at  Oudenarde 
and  Malplaquet  were  gained  over  the  French  armies ; 
and,  though  Louis  was  as  resolute  and  undaunted  as 


VI.] 


PEACE  OF  UTRECHT, 


95 


ever,  his  affairs  were  in  a  desperate  state,  when  he 
was  saved  by  a  sudden  change  of  policy  on  the  part 
of  Queen  Anne  of  England,  who  recalled  her  army 
and  left  her  allies  to  contmue  the  contest  alone. 
Eugene  was  not  a  match  for  France  without  Marl- 
borough, and  the  Archduke  Charles,  having  succeeded 
his  brother  the  Emperor,  gave  up  his  pretensions  to  the 
crown  of  Spain,  so  that  it  became  possible  to  conclude 
a  general  peace  at  Utrecht  in  1713.  By  this  time 
Louis  was  seventy-five  years  of  age,  and  had  suffered 
grievous  family  losses — first  by  the  death  of  his  only 
son,  and  then  of  his  eldest  grandson,  a  young  man 
of  much  promise  of  excellence,  who,  with  his  wife 
died  of  malignant  measles,  probably  from  ignorant 
medical  treatment,  since  their  infant,  whose  illness 
was  concealed  by  his  nurses,  was  the  only  one  of  the 
family  who  survived.  The  old  king,  in  spite  of 
sorrow  and  reverse,  toiled  with  indomitable  energy  to 
the  end  of  his  reign,  the  longest  on  record,  having 
lasted  seventy-two  years,  when  he  died  in  1715.  He 
had  raised  the  French  crown  to  its  greatest  splendour, 
but  had  sacrificed  the  country  to  himself  and  his  false 
notions  of  greatness. 

12.  The  Regency. — The  crown  now  descended 
to  Louis  XV.,  a  weakly  child  of  four  years  old.  His 
great-grandfather  had  tried  to  provide  for  his  good 
by  leaving  the  chief  seat  in  the  council  of  regency  to 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


his  own  illegitimate  son,  the  Duke  of  Maine,  the  most 
honest  and  conscientious  man  then  in  the  family, 
but,  though  clever,  unwise  and  very  unpopular.  His 
birth  caused  the  appointment  to  be  viewed  as  an  out- 
rage by  the  nobility,  and  the  king's  will  was  set  aside. 
The  first  prince  of  the  blood  royal,  Philip,  Duke  of 
Orleans,  the  late  king's  nephew,  became  sole  regent — 
a  man  of  good  ability,  but  of  easy,  indolent  nature ; 
and  who,  in  the  enforced  idleness  of  his  life,  had 
become  dissipated  and  vicious  beyond  all  imagination 
or  description.  He  was  kindly  and  gracious,  and  his 
mother  said  of  him  that  he  was  like  the  prince  in  a  fable 
whom  all  the  fairies  had  endowed  with  gifts,  except  one 
malignant  sprite  who  had  prevented  any  favour  being 
of  use  to  him.  In  the  general  exhaustion  produced 
by  the  wars  of  Louis  XIV.,  a  Scotchman  named 
James  Law  began  the  great  system  of  hollow  specula- 
tion which  has  continued  ever  since  to  tempt  people 
to  their  ruin.  He  tried  raising  sums  of  money  on 
national  credit,  and  also  devised  a  company  who  were 
to  lend  money  to  found  a  great  settlement  on  the 
Mississippi,  the  returns  from  which  were  to  be  enor- 
mous. Every  one  speculated  in  shares,  and  the 
wildest  excitement  prevailed.  Law's  house  was 
mobbed  by  people  seeking  interviews  with  him, 
and  nobles  disguised  themselves  in  liveries  to  get 
access  to  him.  Fortunes  were  made  one  week  and 
lost  the  next,  and  finally  the  whole  plan  proved  to 


VI.]      IVAJ^  OF  THE  AUSTRIAN  SUCCESSION.  97 

have  been  a  mere  baseless  scheme;  ruin  followed, 
and  the  misery  of  the  country  increased.  The  Duke 
of  Orleans  died  suddenly  in  1723.  The  king  was 
now  legally  of  age ;  but  he  was  dull  and  backward, 
and  Httle  fitted  for  government,  and  the  country  was 
really  ruled  by  the  Duke  of  Bourbon,  and  after  him 
by  Cardinal  Fleury,  an  aged  statesman,  but  filled 
with  the  same  schemes  of  ambition  as  Richelieu  or 
Mazarin. 

13.  War  of  the  Austrian  Succession. — Thus 
France  plunged  into  new  wars.  Louis  XV.  married 
the  daughter  of  Stanislas  Lecksinsky,  a  Polish  noble, 
who,  after  being  raised  to  the  throne,  was  expelled 
by  Austrian  intrigues  and  violence.  Louis  was  obliged 
to  take  up  arms  on  behalf  of  his  father-in-law,  but 
was  bought  off  by  a  gift  from  the  Emperor  Charles  VI. 
of  the  duchy  of  Lorraine  to  Stanislas,  to  revert  to 
his  daughter  after  his  death  and  thus  become  united 
to  France.  Lorraine  belonged  to  Duke  Francis,  the 
husband  of  Maria  Theresa,  eldest  daughter  to  the 
Emperor,  and  Francis  received  instead  the  duchy  of 
Tuscany ;  while  all  the  chief  Powers  in  Europe  agreed 
to  the  so-called  Pragmatic  Sanction,  by  which  Charles 
decreed  that  Maria  Theresa  should  inherit  Austria 
and  Hungary  and  the  other  hereditary  states  on  her 
father's  death,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  daughters  of 
his  elder  brother,  Joseph.    When  Charles  VI.  died. 


98 


FRANCE. 


[CHAP. 


however,  in  1740,  a  great  European  war  began 
on  this  matter.  Frederick  II.  of  Prussia  would 
neither  allow  Maria  Theresa's  claim  to  the  hereditary 
states,  nor  join  in  electing  her  husband  to  the 
Empire;  and  France  took  part  against  her,  sending 
Marshal  Belleisle  to  support  the  Elector  of  Bavaria, 
who  had  been  chosen  Emperor.  George  II.  of 
England  held  with  Maria  Theresa,  and  gained  a 
victory  over  the  French  at  Dettingen,  in  1744.  Louis 
XV.  then  joined  his  army,  and  the  battle  of  Fonte- 
noy,  in  1745,  was  one  of  the  rare  victories  of  France 
over  England.  Another  victory  followed  at  Laufeldt, 
but  elsewhere  France  had  had  heavy  losses,  and  in 
1748,  after  the  death  of  Charles  VIL,  peace  was  made 
at  Aix-la-Chapelle. 

14.  The  Seven  Years'  War. — Louis,  dull  and 
selfish  by  nature,  had  been  absolutely  led  into  vice  by 
his  courtiers,  especially  the  Duke  of  Bourbon,  who 
feared  his  becoming  active  in  public  affairs.  He  had 
no  sense  of  duty  to  his  people;  and  whereas  his 
great-grandfather  had  sought  display  and  so-called 
glory,  he  cared  solely  for  pleasure,  and  that  of  the 
grossest  and  most  sensual  order,  so  that  his  court 
w^as  a  hotbed  of  shameless  vice.  All  that  could  be 
wrung  from  the  impoverished  country  was  lavished 
on  the  overgrown  establishments  of  every  member 
of  the  royal  family,  in  pensions  to  nobles,  and  in 


VI.] 


THE  SEVEN  YEARS'  WAR^ 


99 


shameful  amusements  of  the  king.  In  1756  another 
war  broke  out,  in  consequence  of  the  hatreds  left 
between  Prussia  and  Austria  by  the  former  struggle. 
Maria  Theresa  had,  by  flatteries  she  ought  to  have 
disdained,  gained  over  France  to  take  part  with  her, 
and  England  was  allied  with  Frederick  II.  In  this 
war  France  and  England  chiefly  fought  in  their 
distant  possessions,  where  the  English  were  uniformly 
successful ;  and  after  seven  years  another  peace  fol- 
lowed, leaving  the  boundaries  of  the  German  states 
just  where  they  were  before,  after  a  frightful  amount  of 
bloodshed.  But  France  had  had  terrible  losses.  She 
was  driven  from  India,  and  lost  all  her  settlements  in 
America  and  Canada. 

15.  France  under  Louis  XV. — Meantime  the 

gross  vice  and  licentiousness  of  the  king  was  beyond 

description,  and  the  nobility  retained  about  the  court 

by  the  system  established  by  Louis  XIV.  were,  if  not 

his  equals  in  crime,  equally  callous  to  the  suffering 

caused  by  the  reckless  expensiveness  of  the  court,  the 

whole  cost  of  which  was  defrayed  by  the  burghers  and 

peasants.   No  taxes  were  asked  from  clergy  or  nobles, 

and  this  latter  term  included  all  sprung  of  a  noble 

line  to  the  utmost  generation.  The  owner  of  an  estate 

had  no  means  of  benefiting  his  tenants,  even  if  he 

wished  it ;  for  all  matters,  even  of  local  government, 

depended  on  the  crown.     All  he  could  do  was  to 
17* 


100 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


draw  his  income  from  them,  and  he  was  often  forced, 
either  by  poverty  or  by  his  expensive  life,  to  strain  to 
the  utmost  the  old  feudal  system.  If  he  lived  at  court, 
his  expenses  were  heavy,  and  only  partly  met  by  his 
pension,  likewise  raised  from  the  taxes  paid  by  the 
poor  farmer ;  if  he  lived  in  the  country,  he  was  a  still 
greater  tyrant,  and  was  called  by  the  people  a  hobereau, 
or  kite  No  career  was  open  to  his  younger  sons, 
except  in  the  court,  the  Church,  or  the  army,  and 
here  they  monopolized  the  prizes,  obtaining  all  the 
richer  dioceses  and  abbeys,  and  all  the  promotion  in 
the  army.  The  magistracies  were  almost  all  hereditary 
among  lawyers,  who  had  bought  them  for  their  fami- 
lies from  the  crown,  and  paid  for  the  appointment  of 
each  son.  The  officials  attached  to  each  member  of 
the  royal  family  were  almost  incredible  in  number, 
and  all  paid  by  the  taxes.  The  old  gabelle^  or  salt- 
tax,  had  gone  on  ever  since  the  English  wars,  and 
every  member  of  a  family  had  to  pay  it,  not  according 
to  what  they  used,  but  what  they  were  supposed  to 
need.  Every  pig  was  rated  at  what  he  ought  to 
require  for  salting.  Every  cow,  sheep,  or  hen  had  a 
toll  to  pay  to  king,  lord,  bishop — sometimes  also  to 
priest  and  abbey.  The  peasant  was  called  off  from 
his  own  work  to  give  the  dues  of  labour  to  the  roads 
or  to  his  lord.  He  might  not  spread  manure  that 
could  interfere  with  the  game,  nor  drive  away  the 
partridges  that  ate  his  corn.    So  scanty  were  Kv* 


VI.] 


REACTION. 


lOI 


crops  that  famines  slaying  thousands  passed  unnoticed, 
and  even  if,  by  any  wonder,  prosperity  smiled  on  the 
peasant,  he  durst  not  live  in  any  kind  of  comfort, 
lest  the  stewards  of  his  lord  or  of  Government  should 
pounce  on  his  wealth. 

1 6.  Reaction, — Meantime  there  was  a  strong  feel- 
ing that  change  must  come.  Classical  literature  was 
studied,  and  Greek  and  Roman  manners  and  institu- 
tions were  thought  ideal  perfection.  There  was  great 
disgust  at  the  fetters  of  a  highly  artificial  life  in  which 
every  one  was  bound,  and  at  the  institutions  which 
had  been  so  misused.  Writers  arose,  among  whom 
Voltaire  and  Rousseau  were  the  most  eminent,  who 
aimed  at  the  overthrow  of  all  the  ideas  which  had 
come  to  be  thus  abused.  The  one  by  his  caustic  wit, 
the  other  by  his  enthusiastic  simplicity,  gained  willing 
ears,  and,  the  writers  in  a  great  Encyclopaedia  then  in 
course  of  publication,  contrived  to  attack  most  of  the 
notions  which  had  been  hitherto  taken  for  granted, 
and  were  closely  connected  with  faith  and  with  gov- 
ernment. The  king  himself  was  dully  aware  that  he 
was  living  on  the  crust  of  a  volcano,  but  he  said  it 
would  last  his  time ;  and  so  it  did.  Louis  XV.  died  of 
smallpox  in  1774,  leaving  his  grandsons  to  reap  the 
harvest  that  generations  had  been  sowing. 

10 


102 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

TH  E  REVOLUTION. 

I.  Attempts  at  Reform.— It  was  evident  that 
a  change  must  be  made.  Louis  XVL  himself  knew 
it,  and  slurred  over  the  words  in  his  coronation  oath 
that  bound  him  to  extirpate  heresy  ;  but  he  was  a 
slow,  dull  man,  and  affairs  had  come  to  such  a  pass 
that  a  far  abler  man  than  he  could  hardly  have  dealt 
with  the  dead-lock  above,  without  causing  a  frightful 
outbreak  of  the  pent-up  masses  below.  His  queen, 
Marie  Antoinette,  was  hated  for  being  of  Austrian 
birth,  and,  though  a  spotless  and  noble  woman,  her 
most  trivial  actions  gave  occasion  to  calumnies  founded 
on  the  crimes  of  the  last  generation.  Unfortunately, 
the  king,  though  an  honest  and  well-intentioned  man, 
was  totally  unfit  to  guide  a  country  through  a  danger- 
ous crisis.  His  courage  was  passive,  his  manners 
were  heavy,  dull,  and  shy,  and,  though  steadily  in- 
dustrious, he  was  slow  of  comprehension  and  unready 
in  action;  and  reformation  was  the  more  difficult 


yii.] 


A  TTEMPTS  A  T  REFORM. 


because  to  abolish  the  useless  court  offices  would 
have  been  utter  starvation  to  many  of  their  holders, 
who  had  nothing  but  their  pensions  to  live  upon. 
Yet  there  was  a  general  passion  for  reform ;  all  ranks 
alike  looked  to  some  change  to  free  them  from  the 
dead-lock  which  made  improvement  impossible.  The 
Government  was  bankrupt,  while  the  taxes  were  in- 
tolerable, and  the  first  years  of  the  reign  were  spent 
in  experiments.  Necker,  a  Swiss  banker,  was  invited 
to  take  the  charge  of  the  finances,  and  large  loans 
were  made  to  Government,  for  which  he  contrived  to 
pay  interest  regularly ;  some  reduction  was  made  in 
the  expenditure;  but  the  king's  old  minister,  Mau- 
repas,  grew  jealous  of  his  popularity,  and  obtained 
his  dismissal.  The  French  took  the  part  of  the 
American  colonies  in  their  revolt  from  England,  and 
the  war  thus  occasioned  brought  on  an  increase  of  the 
load  of  debt,  the  general  distress  increased,  and  it 
became  necessary  to  devise  some  mode  of  taxing 
which  might  divide  the  burthens  between  the  whole 
nation,  instead  of  making  the  peasants  pay  all  and 
the  nobles  and  clergy  nothing.  Louis  decided 
on  calling  together  the  Notables,  or  higher  nobility; 
but  they  were  by  no  means  disposed  to  tax  them- 
selves, and  only  abused  his  ministers.  He  then 
resolved  on  convoking  the  whole  States-General  of 
the  kingdom,  which  had  never  met  since  the  reign 
ofXouis  XIII. 


104 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


2.  The  States-General. — No  one  exactly  knew 
the  limits  of  the  powers  of  the  States-General  when  it 
met  in  1789.  Nobles,  clergy,  and  the  deputies  who 
represented  the  commonalty,  all  formed  the  assembly 
at  Versailles ;  and  though  the  king  would  have  kept 
apart  these  last,  who  were  called  the  Tiei^s  Etdt,  or  third 
estate,  they  refused  to  withdraw  from  the  great  hall  of 
Versailles.  The  Count  of  Mirabeau,  the  younger  son 
of  a  noble  family,  who  sat  as  a  deputy,  declared  that 
nothing  short  of  bayonets  should  drive  out  those  who 
sat  by  the  w^ill  of  the  people,  and  Louis  yielded. 
Thenceforth  the  votes  of  a  noble,  a  bishop,  or  a 
deputy  all  counted  alike.  The  party  names  of 
democrat  for  those  who  wanted  to  exalt  the  power  of 
the  people,  and  of  aristocrat  for  those  who  maintained 
the  privileges  of  the  nobles,  came  into  use,  and  the 
most  extreme  democrats  were  called  Jacobins,  from 
an  old  convent  of  Jacobin  friars,  where  they  used  to 
meet.  The  mob  of  Paris,  always  eager,  fickle,  and 
often  blood-thirsty,  were  excited  to  the  last  degree  by 
the  debates;  and,  full  of  the  remembrance  of  the 
insolence  and  cruelty  of  the  nobles,  sometimes  rose 
and  hunted  down  persons  whom  they  deemed  aristo- 
crats, hanging  them  to  the  iron  rods  by  which  lamps 
were  suspended  over  the  streets.  The  king  in  alarm 
drew  the  army  nearer,  and  it  was  supposed  that  he 
was  going  to  prevent  all  change  by  force  of  arms. 
Thereupon  the   citizens   enrolled  themselves  as  a 


VII.]  THE  NEW  CONSTITUTION,       "  105 

National  Guard,  wearing  cockades  of  red,  blue,  and 
white,  and  commanded  by  La  Fayette,  a  noble  of 
democratic  opinions,  who  had  run  away  at  seventeen 
to  serve  in  the  American  War.  On  a  report  that  the 
cannon  of  the  Bastille  had  been  pointed  upon  Paris, 
the  mob  rose  in  a  frenzy,  rushed  upon  it,  hanged  the 
guard,  and  absolutely  tore  down  the  old  castle  to  its 
foundations,  though  they  did  not  find  a  single  prisoner 
in  it.  This  is  a  revolt,"  said  Louis,  when  he  heard 
of  it.      Sire,  it  is  'a  revolution,"  was  the  answer. 

3.  The  New  Constitution. — The  mob  had 
found  out  its  power.  The  fishwomen  of  the  markets, 
always  a  peculiar  and  privileged  class,  were  frantically 
excited,  and  were  sure  to  be  foremost  in  all  the 
demonstrations  stirred  up  by  Jacobins.  There  was 
a  great  scarcity  of  provisions  in  Paris,  and  this, 
together  with  the  continual  dread  that  reforms  would 
be  checked  by  violence,  maddened  the  people.  On 
a  report  that  the  Guards  had  shown  enthusiasm  for 
the  king,  the  whole  populace  came  pouring  out  of 
Paris  to  Versailles,  and,  after  threatening  the  life  of 
the  queen,  brought  the  family  back  with  them  to 
Paris,  and  kept  them  almost  as  prisoners  while  the 
Assembly,  which  followed  them  to  Paris,  debated  on 
the  new  constitution.  The  nobles  were  viewed  as  the 
worst  enemies  of  the  nation,  and  all  over  the  country 
there  were  risings  of  the  peasants,  headed  by  democrats 


io6 


FRANCE, 


[chap. 


from  the  towns,  who  sacked  their  castles,  and  often 
seized  their  persons.  Many  fled  to  England  and  Ger- 
many, and  the  dread  that  these  would  unite  and  re- 
turn to  bring  back  the  old  system  continually  in- 
creased the  fury  of  the  people.  The  Assembly,  now 
known  as  the  Constituent  Assembly,  swept  away  all 
titles  and  privileges,  and  no  one  was  henceforth  to 
bear  any  prefix  to  his  name  but  citizen  ;  while  at  the 
same  time  the  clergy  were  to  renounce  all  the  pro- 
perty of  the  Church,  and  to  swear  that  their  office 
and  commission  was  derived  from  the  will  of  the 
people  alone,  and  that  they  owed  no  obedience  save 
to  the  State.  The  estates  thus  yielded  up  were  sup- 
posed to  be  enough  to  supply  all  State  expenses  with- 
out taxes ;  but  as  they  could  not  at  once  be  turned 
into  money,  promissory  notes,*  or  assignats,  were  issued. 
But,  as  coin  was  scarce,  these  were  not  worth  nearly 
their  professed  value,  and  the  general  distress  was 
thus  much  increased.  The  other  oath  the  great  body 
of  the  clergy  utterly  refused,  and  they  were  therefore 
driven  out  of  their  benefices,  and  became  objects  of 
great  suspicion  to  the  democrats.  All  the  old  bound- 
aries and  other  distinctions  between  the  provinces 
were  destroyed,  and  France  was  divided  into  depart- 
ments, each  of  which  was  to  elect  deputies,  in  whose 
assembly  all  power  was  to  be  vested,  except  that  the 
kine^  retained  a  right  of  veto,  of  refusing  his 
sanction  to  any  measure.  He  swore  on  the  13  th  of 
August,  1 791,  to  observe  this  new  constitution. 


THE  REPUBLIC 


107 


4.  The  P^epublic. — The  Constituent  Assembly 
now  dissolved  itself,  and  a  fresh  Assembly,  called 
the  Legislative,  took  its  place.  For  a  time  things 
went  on  more  peacefully.  Distrust  was,  however, 
deeply  sown.  The  king  was  closely  watched  as  an 
enemy ;  and  those  of  the  nobles  who  had  emigrated 
began  to  form  armies,  aided  by  the  Germans,  on  the 
frontier  for  his  rescue.  This  enraged  the  people,  who 
expected  that  their  newly  won  liberties  would  be  over- 
thrown. The  first  time  the  king  exercised  his  right  of 
veto  the  mob  rose  in  fury;  and  though  they  then  did  no 
more  than  threaten,  on  the  advance  of  the  emigrant 
army  on  the  loth  of  August,  1792,  a  more  terrible 
rising  took  place.  The  Tuilleries  was  sacked,  the 
guards  slaughtered,  the  unresisting  king  and  his  family 
deposed  and  imprisoned  in  the  tower  of  the  Temple. 
In  terror  lest  the  nobles  in  the  prisons  should  unite 
with  the  emigrants,  they  were  massacred  by  wholesale; 
while,  with  a  vigour  born  of  the  excitement,  the  emi- 
grant armies  were  repulsed  and  beaten.  The  monarchy 
came  to  an  end ;  and  France  became  a  Republic,  in 
which  the  National  Convention,  which  followed  the 
Legislative  Assembly,  was  supreme.  The  more 
moderate  members  of  this  were  called  Girondins  from 
the  Gironde,  the  estuary  of  the  Garonne,  from  the 
neighbourhood  of  which  many  of  them  came.  They 
were  able  men,  scholars  and  philosophers,  full  of 
schemes  for  reviving  classical  times,  but  wishing  to 


io8 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


stop  short  of  the  plans  of  the  Jacobins,  of  whom 
the  chief  was  Robespierre,  a  lawyer  from  Artois, 
filled  with  fanatical  notions  of  the  rights  of  man. 
He,  with  a  party  of  other  violent  republicans,  called 
the  Mountain,  of  whom  Danton  and  Marat  were 
most  noted,  set  to  work  to  destroy  all  that  interfered 
with  their  plans  of  general  equality.  The  guillotine, 
a  recently  invented  machine  for  beheading,  was  set 
in  all  the  chief  market-places,  and  hundreds  were 
put  to  death  on  the  charge  of  conspiring  against 
the  nation."  Louis  XVI.  was  executed  early  in  1793  ; 
and  it  was  enough  to  have  any  sort  of  birthright  to 
be  thought  dangerous  and  put  to  death. 

5.  The  Reign  of  Terror. — Horror  at  the  blood- 
shed perpetrated  by  the  Mountain  led  a  young  girl, 
nam^ed  Charlotte  Corday,  to  assassinate  Marat,  whom 
she  supposed  to  be  the  chief  cause  of  the  cruelties  that 
were  taking  place;  but  his  death  only  added  to  the 
dread  of  reaction.  A  Committee  of  Public  Safety  was 
appointed  by  the  Convention,  and  endeavoured  to 
sweep  away  every  being  who  either  seemed  adverse 
to  equality,  or  who  might  inherit  any  claim  to  rank. 
The  queen  was  put  to  death  nine  months  after  her 
husband;  and  the  Girondins,  who  had  begun  to  try 
to  stem  the  tide  of  slaughter,  soon  fell  under  the 
denunciation  of  the  more  violent.  To  be  accused  of 
*^  conspiring  against  the  State  "  was  instantly  fatal,  and 


VII.] 


THE  REIGN  OF  TERROI^, 


109 


no  one's  life  was  safe.  Danton  was  denouncea  by 
Robespierre,  and  perished  ;  and  for  three  whole  years 
the  Reign  of  Terror  lasted.  The  emigrants,  by  form- 
ing an  army  and  advancing  on  France,  assisted  by  the 
forces  of  Germany,  only  made  matters  worse.  There 
was  such  a  dread  of  the  old  oppressions  coming  back, 
that  the  peasants  were  ready  to  fight  to  the  death 
against  the  return  of  the  nobles.  The  army,  where 
promotion  used  to  go  by  rank  instead  of  merit,  were 
so  glad  of  the  change,  that  they  were  full  of  fresh 
spirit,  and  repulsed  the  army  of  Germans  and  emi- 
grants all  along  the  frontier.  The  city  of  Lyons, 
which  had  tried  to  resist  the  changes,  was  taken,  and 
frightfully  used  by  Collot  d'Herbois,  a  member  of  the 
Committee  of  Public  Safety.  The  'guillotine  was  too 
slow  for  him,  and  he  had  the  people  mown  down  with 
grape-shot,  declaring  that  of  this  great  city  nothing 
should  be  left  but  a  monument  inscribed,  Lyons  re- 
sisted liberty — Lyons  is  no  more  !  "  In  La  Vendee — 
a  district  of  Anjou,  where  the  peasants  were  much 
attached  to  their  clergy  and  nobles — they  rose  and 
gained  such  successes,  that  they  dreamt  for  a  little 
while  of  rescuing  and  restoring  the  little  captive  son 
of  Louis  XVI.  j  but  they  were  defeated  and  put  down 
by  fire  and  sword,  and  at  Nantes  an  immense  number 
of  executions  took  place,  chiefly  by  drowning.  It  was 
reckoned  that  no  less  than  18,600  persons  were  guillo- 
tined in  the  three  years  between  1790  and  1794,  be- 


no 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


sides  those  who  died  by  other  means.  Everything  was 
changed.  Rehgion  was  to  be  done  away  with;  the 
churches  were  closed;  the  tenth  instead  of  the  seventh 
day  appointed  for  rest.  Death  is  an  eternal  sleep  " 
was  inscribed  on  the  schools;  and  Reason,  represented 
by  a  classically  dressed  woman,  was  enthroned  in  the 
cathedral  of  Notre  Dame.  At  the  same  time  a  new 
era  was  invented,  the  22nd  of  September,  1792  ;  the 
months  had  new  names,  and  the  decimal  measures 
of  length,  weight,  and  capacity,  which  are  based  on 
the  proportions  of  the  earth,  were  planned.  All  this 
time  Robespierre  really  seems  to  have  thought  himself 
the  benefactor  of  the  human  race ;  but  at  last  the  other 
members  of  the  Convention  took  courage  to  denounce 
him,  and  he,  with  five  more,  was  arrested  and  sent  to 
the  guillotine.  The  bloodthirsty  fever  was  over,  the 
Committee  of  Public  Safety  was  overthrown,  and 
people  breathed  again. 

6.  The  Directory. — The  chief  executive  power 
was  placed  in  the  hands  of  a  Directory,  consisting  of 
more  moderate  men,  and  a  time  of  much  prosperity 
set  in.  Already  in  the  new  vigour  born  of  the 
strong  emotions  of  the  country  the  armies  won  great 
victories,  not  only  repelUng  the  Germans  and  the 
emigrants,  but  uniting  Holland  to  France.  Napoleon 
Buonaparte,  a  Corsican  officer,  who  was  called  on  to 
protect  the  Directory  from  being  again  overawed 


vn. 


THE  DIRECTORY. 


Ill 


by  the  mob,  became  the  leading  spirit  in  France, 
through  his  Italian  victories.  He  conquered  Lom- 
bardy  and  Tuscany,  and  forced  the  Emperor  to  let 
them  become  republics  under  French  protection,  also 
to  resign  Flanders  to  France  by  the  Treaty  of  Campo 
Formio.  Buonaparte  then  made  a  descent  on  Egypt, 
hoping  to  attack  India  from  that  side,  but  he  was 
foiled  by  Nelson,  who  destroyed  his  fleet  in  the  battle 
of  the  Nile,  and  Sir  Sydney  Smith,  who  held  out  Acre 
against  him.  He  hurried  home  to  France  on  finding 
that  the  Directory  had  begun  a  fresh  European  war, 
seizing  Switzerland,  and  forcing  it  to  give  up  its  trea- 
sures and  become  a  republic  on  their  model,  and 
carrying  the  Pope  off  into  captivity.  All  the  European 
Powers  had  united  against  them,  and  Lombardy  had 
been  recovered  chiefly  by  Russian  aid  ;  so  that  Buona- 
parte, on  the  ground  that  a  nation  at  war  needed  a 
less  cumbrous  government  than  a  Directory,  contrived 
to  get  himself  chosen  First  Consul,  with  two  inferiors, 
in  1799. 

7.  The  Consulate. — A  great  course  of  victories 
followed  in  Italy,  where  Buonaparte  commanded  in 
person,  and  in  Germany  under  Moreau.  Austria 
and  Russia  were  forced  to  make  peace,  and  England 
was  the  only  country  that  still  resisted  him,  till 
a  general  peace  was  made  at  Amiens  in  1803 ;  but  it 
only  lasted  for  a  year,  for  the  French  failed  to  perform 


112 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


the  conditions,  and  began  the  war  afresh.  In  the  mean 
time  Buonaparte  had  restored  rehgion  and  order,  and  so 
entirely  mastered  France  that,  in  1804,  he  was  able 
to  form  the  republic  into  an  empire,  and  affecting  to 
be  another  Charles  the  Great,  he  caused  the  Pope  to 
say  mass  at  his  coronation,  though  he  put  the  crown 
on  his  own  head.  A  concordat  with  the  Pope  rein- 
stated the  clergy,  but  altered  the  division  of  the 
dioceses,  and  put  the  bishops  and  priests  in  the  pay 
of  the  State. 

8.  The  Empire. — The  union  of  Italy  to  this  new 
French  Empire  caused  a  fresh  war  with  all  Europe. 
The  Austrian  army,  however,  was  defeated  at  Ulm 
and  Austerlitz,  the  Prussians  were  entirely  crushed  at. 
Jena,  and  the  Russians  fought  two  terrible  but 
almost  drawn  battles  at  Eylau  and  Friedland.  Peace 
was  then  made  with  all  three  at  Tilsit,  in  1807, 
the  terms  pressing  exceedingly  hard  upon  Prussia. 
Schemes  of  invading  England  were  entertained  by 
the  Emperor,  but  were  disconcerted  by  the  de- 
struction of  the  French  and  Spanish  fleets  by  Nelson 
at  Trafalgar.  Spain  was  then  in  alliance  with  France ; 
but  Napoleon,  treacherously  getting  the  royal  family 
into  his  hands,  seized  their  kingdom,  making  his 
brother  Joseph  its  king.  But  the  Spaniards  would 
not  submit,  and  called  in  the  English  to  their  aid.  The 
Peninsular  War  resulted  in  a  series  of  victories  on  the 


VII.]  THE  EMPIRE,  113 

part  of  the  English  under  Wellington,  while  Austria, 
beginning  another  war,  was  again  so  crushed  that  the 
Emperor  durst  not  refuse  to  give  his  daughter  in 
marriage  to  Napoleon.  However,  in  181 2,  the  con- 
quest of  Russia  proved  an  exploit  beyond  Napoleon's 
powers.  He  reached  Moscow  with  his  Grand  Army, 
but  the  city  was  burnt  down  immediately  after  his 
arrival,  and  he  had  no  shelter  or  means  of  support. 
He  was  forced  to  retreat,  through  a  fearful  winter, 
without  provisions  and  harassed  by  the  Cossacks, 
who  hung  on  the  rear  and  cut  off  the  stragglers,  so 
that  his  whole  splendid  army  had  become  a  mere 
miserable,  broken,  straggling  remnant  by  the  time 
the  survivors  reached  the  Prussian  frontier.  He  him- 
self had  hurried  back  to  Paris  as  soon  as  he  found 
their  case  hopeless,  to  arrange  his  resistance  to  all 
Europe — for  every  country  rose  against  him  on  his  first 
disaster — and  the  next  year  was  spent  in  a  series  of 
desperate  battles  in  Germany  between  him  and  the 
Allied  Powers.  Liitzen  and  Bautzen  were  doubtful,  but 
the  two  days'  battle  of  Leipzic  was  a  terrible  defeat. 
In  the  year  1814,  four  armies — those  of  Austria,  Russia, 
England,  and  Prussia — entered  France  at  once;  and 
though  Napoleon  resisted,  stood  bravely  and  skilfully, 
and  gained  single  battles  against  Austria  and  Prussia, 
he  could  not  stand  against  all  Europe.  In  April  the 
Allies  entered  Paris,  and  he  was  forced  to  abdicate, 
being  sent  under  a  strong  guard  to  the  little  Mediter- 
11 


114 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


ranean  isle  of  Elba.  He  had  drained  France  of  men 
by  his  constant  call  for  soldiers,  who  were  drawn  by 
conscription  from  the  whole  country,  till  there  were 
not  enough  to  do  the  work  in  the  fields,  and  foreign 
prisoners  had  to  be  employed ;  but  he  had  conferred 
on  her  one  great  benefit  in  the  great  code  of  laws 
called  the  *^  Code  Napoleon^''  which  has  ever  since 
continued  in  force. 

9.  France  under  Napoleon. — The  old  laws 
and  customs,  varying  in  different  provinces,  had  been 
swept  away,  so  that  the  field  was  clear;  and  the 
system  of  government  which  Napoleon  devised  has 
remained  practically  unchanged  from  that  time  to  this. 
Everything  was  made  to  depend  upon  the  central 
government.  The  Ministers  of  Religion,  of  Justice, 
of  Police,  of  Education,  etc.,  have  the  regulation  of  all 
interior  affairs,  and  appoint  all  who  work  under  them, 
so  that  nobody  learns  how  to  act  alone ;  and  as  the 
Government  has  been  in  fact  ever  since  dependent  on 
the  will  of  the  people  of  Paris,  the  whole  country  is 
helplessly  in  their  hands.  The  army,  as  in  almost  all 
foreign  nations,  is  raised  by  conscription — that  is,  by 
drawing  lots  among  the  young  men  liable  to  serve, 
and  who  can  only  escape  by  paying  a  substitute  to 
serve  in  their  stead ;  and  this  is  generally  the  first 
object  of  the  savings  of  a  family.  All  feudal  claims 
had  been  done  away  with,  and  with  them  the  right  of 


VII.]  FRANCE  UNDER  NAPOLEON,  115 

primogeniture ;  and,  indeed,  it  is  not  possible  for  a 
testator  to  avoid  leaving  his  property  to  be  shared 
among  his  family,  though  he  can  make  some  small 
differences  in  the  amount  each  receives,  and  thus 
estates  are  continually  freshly  divided,  and  some  por- 
tions become  very  small  indeed.  French  peasants 
are,  however,  most  eager  to  own  land,  and  are  usually 
very  frugal,  sober,  and  saving ;  and  the  country  has 
gone  on  increasing  in  prosperity  and  comfort.  It  is 
true  that,  probably  from  the  long  habit  of  concealing 
any  wealth  they  might  possess,  the  French  farmers  and 
peasantry  care  little  for  display,  or  what  we  should  call 
comfort,  and  live  rough  hard-working  lives  even  while 
well  off  and  with  large  hoards  of  wealth  ;  but  their 
condition  has  been  wonderfully  changed  for  the  better 
ever  since  the  Revolution.  All  this  has  continued 
under  the  numerous  changes  that  have  taken  place  in 
the  forms  of  government. 
18* 


ii6  FRANCE,  [cHAr 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

FRANCE  SINCE  THE  REVOLUTION. 

I.  The  Restoration. — The  Allies  left  the  people 
of  France  free  to  choose  their  Government,  and  they 
accepted  the  old  royal  family,  who  were  on  their 
borders  awaiting  a  recall.  The  son  of  Louis  XVI.  had 
perished  in  the  hands  of  his  jailers,  and  thus  the  king's 
next  brother,  Louis  XVIII. ^  succeeded  to  the  throne, 
bringing  back  a  large  emigrant  following.  Things 
were  not  settled  down,  when  Napoleon,  in  the  spring 
of  1815,  escaped  from  Elba.  The  army  welcomed  him 
with  delight,  and  Louis  was  forced  to  flee  to  Ghent. 
However,  the  AUies  immediately  rose  in  arms,  and 
the  troops  of  England  and  Prussia  crushed  Napoleon 
entirely  at  Waterloo,  on  the  i8th  of  June,  18 15.  He 
was  sent  to  the  lonely  rock  of  St.  Helena,  in  the 
Atlantic,  whence  he  could  not  again  return  to  trouble 
the  peace  of  Europe.  There  he  died  in  1821.  Louis 
XVIII.  was  restored,  and  a  charter  was  devised  by 
which  a  limited  monarchy  was  established,  a  king  at 


VIII.] 


REIGN  OF  LOUIS  PHILIPPE. 


117 


the  head,  and  two  chambers — one  of  peers,  the  other  of 
deputies,  but  with  a  very  narrow  franchise.  It  did  not, 
however,  work  amiss;  till,  after  Louis's  death  in  1824, 
his  brother,  Charles  X,  tried  to  fall  back  on  the  old 
system.  He  checked  the  freedom  of  the  press,  and 
interfered  with  the  freedom  of  elections.  The  conse- 
quence was  a  fresh  revolution  in  July,  1830,  happily 
with  little  bloodshed,  but  which  forced  Charles  X.  to 
go  into  exile  with  his  grandchild  Henry,  whose  father, 
the  Duke  of  Berry,  had  been  assassinated  in  1820. 

2.  Reign  of  Louis  Philippe. — The  chambers  of 
deputies  offered  the  crown  to  Louis  PJiilippe^  Duke 
of  Orleans.  He  was  descended  /rom  the  regent ;  his 
father  had  been  one  of  the  democratic  party  in  the 
Revolution,  and,  w^hen  titles  were  abolished,  had  called 
himself  Philip  Egalite  (Equality).  This  had  not  saved 
his  head  under  the  Reign  of  Terror,  and  his  son  had 
been  obliged  to  flee  and  lead  a  wandering  life,  at  one 
time  gaining  his  livelihood  by  teaching  mathematics  at 
a  school  in  Switzerland.  He  had  recovered  his  family 
estates  at  the  Restoration,  and,  as  the  head  of  the 
Liberal  party,  was  very  popular.  He  was  elected 
King  of  the  French,  not  of  France,  with  a  chamber  of 
peers  nominated  for  life  only,  and  another  of  deputies 
elected  by  voters,  whose  qualification  was  two  hundred 
francs,  or  eight  pounds  a  year.  He  did  his  utmost  to 
^ain  the  good  will  of  the  people,  living  a  simple, 


ii8 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


friendly  family  life,  and  trying  to  merit  the  term  of  the 
citizen  king/'  and  in  the  earlier  years  of  his  reign 
he  was  successful.  The  country  was  prosperous,  and 
a  great  colony  was  settled  in  Algiers,  and  endured  a 
long  and  desperate  war  with  the  wild  Arab  tribes.  A 
colony  was  also  established  in  New  Caledonia,  in  the 
Pacific ,  and  attempts  were  carried  out  to  compensate 
thus  for  the  losses  of  colonial  possessions  Avhich  France 
had  sustained  in  wars  with  England.  Discontents, 
however,  began  to  arise,  on  the  one  hand  from  those 
who  remembered  only  the  successes  of  Buonaparte,  and 
not  the  miseries  they  had  caused,  and  on  the  other 
from  the  working-classes,  who  declared  that  the  bour- 
geois, or  tradespeople,  had  gained  everything  by  the 
revolution  of  July,  but  they  themselves  nothing.  Louis 
Philippe  did  his  best  to  gratify  and  amuse  the  people 
by  sending  for  the  remains  of  Napoleon,  and  giving 
him  a  magnificent  funeral  and  splendid  monument 
among  his  old  soldiers — the  Invalides  ;  but  his  popu- 
larity was  waning.  In  1842  his  eldest  son,  the  Duke 
of  Orleans,  a  favourite  with  the  people,  was  killed  by 
a  fall  from  his  carriage,  and  this  was  another  shock  to 
his  throne.  Two  young  grandsons  were  left ;  and  the 
king  had  also  several  sons,  one  of  whom,  the  Duke  of 
Montpensier,  he  gave  in  marriage  to  Louise,  the  sister 
and  heiress  presumptive  to  the  Queen  of  Spain;  though, 
by  treaty  with  the  other  European  Powers,  it  had  beer 
agreed  that  she  should  not  marry  a  French  prince 


VIII.] 


THE  REVOLUTION  OF  1848. 


119 


unless  the  queen  had  children  of  her  own.  Ambition 
for  his  family  was  a  great  offence  to  his  subjects,  and 
at  the  same  time  a  nobleman,  the  Duke  de  Praslin, 
who  had  murdered  his  wife,  committed  suicide  in 
prison  to  avoid  public  execution ;  and  the  republicans 
declared,  whether  justly  or  unjustly,  that  this  had  been 
allowed  rather  than  let  a  noble  die  a  felon's  death. 

3.  The  Revolution  of  1848. — In  spite  of  the 
increased  prosperity  of  the  country,  there  was  general 
disaffection.  There  were  four  parties — the  Orleanists, 
who  held  by  Louis  Philippe  and  his  minister  Guizot, 
and  whose  badge  was  the  tricolour;  the  Legitimists, 
who  retained  their  loyalty  to  the  exiled  Henry,  and 
whose  symbol  was  the  white  Bourbon  flag  ;  the  Buona- 
partists ;  and  the  Republicans,  whose  badge  was  the 
red  cap  and  flag.  A  demand  for  a  franchise  that 
should  include  the  mass  of  the  people  was  rejected, 
and  the  general  displeasure  poured  itself  out  in  speeches 
at  political  banquets.  An  attempt  to  stop  one  of  these 
led  to  an  uproar.  The  National  Guard  refused  to  fire 
on  the  people,  and  their  fury  rose  unchecked ;  so  that 
the  king,  thinking  resistance  vain,  signed  an  abdication, 
and  fled  to  England  in  February,  1848.  A  provisional 
Government  was  formed,  and  a  new  constitution  was 
to  be  arranged ;  but  the  Paris  mob,  who  found  their 
condition  unchanged,  and  really  wanted  equality  of 
wealth,  not  of  rights,  made  disturbances  again  and 


120 


FRANCE. 


[chap. 


again,  and  barricaded  the  streets,  till  they  were  finally 
put  down  by  General  Cavaignac,  while  the  rest  of 
France  was  entirely  dependent  on  the  will  of  the  capital. 
After  some  months,  a  republic  was  determined  on, 
which  was  to  have  a  president  at  its  head,  chosen 
every  five  years  by  universal  suffrage.  Louis  Napoleon 
Buonaparte,  nephew  to  the  great  Napoleon,  was  the 
first  president  thus  chosen  ;  and,  after  some  struggles, 
he  not  only  mastered  Paris,  but,  by  the  help  of  the 
army,  which  was  mostly  Buonapartist,  he  dismissed  the 
chamber  of  deputies,  and  imprisoned  or  exiled  all  the 
opponents  whom  the  troops  had  not  put  to  death,  on 
thev  plea  of  an  expected  rising  of  the  mob.  This  was 
called  a  coiLp  d'etat^  and  Louis  Napoleon  was  then 
declared  president  for  ten  years. 

4.  The  Second  Empire. — In  December,  1852, 
the  president  took  the  title  of  Emperor,  calling  himself 
Napoleon  III,  as  successor  to  the  young  son  of  the 
great  Napoleon.  He  kept  up  a  splendid  and  expensive 
court,  made  Paris  more  than  ever  the  toy-shop  of  the 
world,  and  did  much  to  improve  it  by  the  widening  of 
streets  and  removal  of  old  buildings.  Treaties  were 
made  which  much  improved  trade,  and  the  country 
advanced  in  prosperity.  The  reins  of  government 
were,  however,  tightly  held,  and  nothing  was  so  much 
avoided  as  the  letting  men  think  or  act  for  them- 
selves, while  their  eyes  were  to  be  dazzled  with 


VIII.] 


THE  SECOND  EMPIRE, 


121 


splendour  and  victory.  In  1853,  when  Russia  was 
attacking  Turkey,  the  Emperor  united  with  England 
in  opposition,  and  the  two  armies  together  besieged 
Sebastopol,  and  fought  the  battles  of  Alma  and  In- 
kermann,  taking  the  city  after  nearly  a  year's  siege  ; 
and  then  making  what  is  known  as  the  Treaty  of 
Paris,  which  guaranteed  the  safety  of  Turkey  so  long 
as  the  subject  Christian  nations  were  not  misused. 
In  1859  Napoleon  III.  joined  in  an  attack  on  the 
Austrian  power  in  Italy,  and  together  with  Victor 
Emanuel,  King  of  Sardinia,  and  the  Italians,  gained 
two  great  victories  at  Magenta  and  Solferino;  but 
made  peace  as  soon  as  it  was  convenient  to  him, 
without  regard  to  his  promises  to  the  King  of 
Sardinia,  who  was  obliged  to  purchase  his  consent 
to  becoming  King  of  United  Italy  by  yielding  up 
to  France  his  old  inheritance  of  Savoy  and  Nice. 
Meantime  discontent  began  to  spring  up  at  home,  and 
the  Red  Republican  spirit  was  working  on.  The  huge 
fortunes  made  by  the  successful  only  added  to  the 
sense  of  contrast ;  secret  societies  were  at  work,  and 
the  Emperor,  after  twenty  years  of  success,  felt  his 
popularity  waning. 

5.  The  Franco-German  War. — In  1870  the 
Spaniards,  who  had  deposed  their  queen,  Isabel  II., 
made  choice  of  a  relation  of  the  King  of  Prussia  as 
their  king.  There  had  long  been  bitter  jealousy  between 


122 


FRANCE. 


[chap.  VIII. 


France  and  Prussia,  and,  though  the  prince  refused  the 
offer  of  Spain,  the  French  showed  such  an  overbearing 
spirit  that  a  war  broke  out.  The  real  desire  of  France 
was  to  obtain  the  much-coveted  frontier  of  the  Rhine, 
and  the  Emperor  heated  their  armies  with  boastful 
proclamations  which  were  but  the  prelude  to  direful 
defeats,  at  Weissenburg,  Worth,  and  Forbach.  At 
Sedan,  the  Emperor  was  forced  to  surrender  himself  as 
a  prisoner,  and  the  tidings  no  sooner  arrived  at  Paris 
than  the  whole  of  the  people  turned  their  wrath  on 
him  and  his  family.  His  wife,  the  Empress  Eugenie, 
had  to  flee,  a  republic  was  declared,  and  the  city  pre- 
pared to  stand  a  siege.  The  Germans  advanced,  and 
put  down  all  resistance  in  other  parts  of  France. 
Great  part  of  the  army  had  been  made  prisoners,  and, 
though  there  was  much  bravado,  there  was  little 
steadiness  or  courage  left  among  those  who  now  took 
up  arms.  Paris,  which  was  blockaded,  after  suffering 
much  from  famine,  surrendered  in  P^ebruary,  1871; 
and  peace  was  purchased  in  a  treaty  by  which  great 
part  of  Elsass  and  Lorraine,  and  the  city  of  Metz, 
were  given  back  to  Germany. 


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